


A Price Above Rubies

by Valeris



Category: Agent Carter (TV), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Artist Steve Rogers, Awesome Darcy Lewis, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Odin's A+ Parenting, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Up all night to get Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 19:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 45,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3459266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valeris/pseuds/Valeris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl had only one thing of true value-- her virtue.</p><p>Once you’d lost your virtue, though-- well, no one told you what happened then.  If anyone had, Darcy would have disposed of it a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Thanks for not burning up the whole ship.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3247865) by [Valeris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valeris/pseuds/Valeris). 



The dinner table was the bad kind of quiet, where every scrape of your cutlery seemed loud enough to deafen.  Darcy tried to feel some relief, some enjoyment.  She was wearing a very comfortable tea gown, without the corsets that Odin insisted on.  She was with Jane, which was always one of her favorite places to be.  She should feel happy right now.

But on the other side of this dinner, there was the rest of her life. Some party, some ball, some insipid dinner with _Odin_.

The balls were the worst.  She hated being socially obligated to let a dozen strange men drag her around a room.  She hated that she couldn’t do more than wet her lips with lemonade the entire night, because her maid had sewn her into her gown.  But most of all, she hated the talk, and the eyes on her everywhere she went. The whispers.  It shocked no one when an older man took a much younger girl-- he wasn’t to blame.  Men had their needs.  The girl… well.  She must have done something to turn his head.

And Darcy had always had a lot to turn a man’s head.  She wasn’t ‘fashionably’ beautiful, but she was curvy, with fair skin and a wide smile.  There was a sensuality to her that men assumed meant that she would be available to them.  She wasn’t, and more than one man was taught the meaning of ‘no’ with the sharp point of her heels.  She had always been a little scandalous, but no one would have gone so far as to call her ‘ruined’.

In point of fact, she still wasn’t.  Not that you could be ‘ruined’ once you were married.  It was coming, any day now-- the night that she couldn’t put it off any longer.  There was a part of her that thought she should just get it over with.  Bed the man, stare at the ceiling thinking of England or whatever women were supposed to do to get through marriages they hadn’t wanted.

Darcy hadn’t want marriage at all.  She had not wanted Odin, specifically, and she had wanted to be an Archduchess even less.  Every time someone called her ‘Your Grace’ she wanted to slap them.

It felt like a cage closing in around her that shut all the air from the room.  She would get to see a lot more of Jane, that was some consolation.  Yet she was with Jane now and all of the savour had gone out of it.  Jane with her happy marriage, throwing loving glances to Darcy’s new ‘son in law’.  It made her want to throw something at them.  It made her want to laugh until she couldn’t breathe.

 _I believe I may be hysterical._  Darcy thought, calmly spearing another piece of salmon.

Jane had just opened her mouth to say something, when Fandral interrupted their meal with the news that her husband was dead.

When Darcy started to cry, Jane had held her and whispered comforting things-- that it would be okay, not to be sad, that Odin was in Heaven now.  Darcy was fairly certain that was not where he was, but there were some things it just wasn’t proper to say.


	2. A Full House

Her entire life, Darcy was taught what she needed to be a proper lady.  The lessons hadn’t _stuck_ , but they’d taught her all the same.  There were a million ways to step wrong and lose your place in society.

She had never thought to question whether her ‘place’ was where she wanted to be.  Perhaps being a widow was much different than being a ‘fallen woman’.  Darcy hadn't ever agreed with that phrase.  (As if a woman was able to manufacture her own ruin.  If a woman ‘fell’, she thought it would make more sense to blame the man who had pushed her.)

Her marriage had been scandalous, or so people told her.  The old Archduke, marrying so soon after his wife’s death, and marrying someone so common!  To think.  The daughter of a Vidame and a scientist!  She might as well have been a governess.

But it was not every girl who was wedded, bedded, and widowed in a week by the town's wealthiest man.  It was asking too much to expect people not to talk.

The coroner had cleared anyone of foul play-- he had had an apoplexy, and that was really all there was to be said.  It didn’t stop people from saying things though.  It had been very convenient.

Darcy couldn’t help but agree.  She certainly found her husband’s death to be convenient-- and though she put on mourning clothes, she did not mourn him.  

She was glad to be shut of him, but she had no idea of the social niceties expected of a dowager Archduchess.  She would surely be shunned by society.

Then it occurred to her-- that was exactly what she wanted.  She didn’t care if she was invited to Lady Whatever’s salon.  She didn’t want to go.  In fact, if she never saw the inside of another stranger’s parlor, Darcy thought she’d be satisfied with life.  And why did she have to?  She was richer than God (or so people told her).  But what was more, she was a widow-- there was no husband to tell her how to behave.

Darcy could do whatever she wanted.

If she wanted to, she could never speak to another person again.  Darcy could run away to another country where no one had ever heard of her.

Of course, she really couldn’t, because of Jane (and to a lesser degree Thor).

Even with her dreams of spending the rest of her days barefoot on a beach in Spain so cruelly dashed, Darcy still felt she had some room to be eccentric.

Her first act was to announce, in as public a fashion as was available to her, that she was not going to go to another ball ever again.  There was nothing about them that had ever caused her pleasure.  When Darcy received her next batch of invitations, she sent them all back with a polite refusal.  A few intrepid or financially destitute souls had persisted in inviting her or coming to call, but she had thwarted them at every turn.

She had been so pleased with the results of her experiment, that today she was going a step further.

“What do you mean, Your Grace?” Her footman Ian asked, as if she hadn’t been perfectly clear.

“I mean just what I said, Ian.  I am going for a walk.  Alone.”

“Er… with one of the maids as a chaperone?” He tried hopefully.  

“I’m an adult, Ian, not a child.  I do not require a chaperone.  As a dowager, I could be a chaperone, actually.” Darcy mused.  Ian looked like he might be in physical pain.

“There are cutpurses?”  Ian tried.

Darcy let out an unladylike snort.  “If they can cut my purse, they’re welcome to it.” 

 

An hour later when Darcy tripped the little thief who had tried (somewhat successfully) for her purse, she thought God must be laughing.

“You were very close.”  She told him sympathetically, while standing on his chest with one foot.  “I think that you would have gotten away with it, with most ladies.”

He was rough looking, blond and skinny with cuts on his face and a bandage on his right biceps, but he still glared at her fiercely.

“Well, go on then.”  He said, his voice a little hoarse with sickness.  “Call for someone to cart me off.”

He was so matter-of-fact, as if he were ‘carted off’ on a regular basis.  As he looked about 12, that was disturbing.  Darcy gave him another look over.  Still skinny, and in addition to the bandage and the cut he had a fine collection of bruises.  Blue eyes that seemed sharply intelligent.  Clothes that had not been good when they were new and were now worn almost to transparency… and what looked like a girl’s friendship bracelet on his wrist.  It was dirty, but it looked like it had been woven in different shades of purple, and repaired several times.

“Keep it.” Dary said, removing her shoe from his chest and sitting down at her table to finish her cup of chocolate.  There were a few men on their feet, waiting to see if their assistance was needed, and she waved them down.  They sat uncertainly, glancing back.

The boy seemed to share their opinion, still sitting on the cobblestones.  “What do you mean, keep it?”  He demanded, and opened the purse.  His eyes went huge.  He closed it again as if it were full of snakes, holding it a little away from his body.

“More money than you’ve ever seen in your life, right kid?”  Darcy asked, nodded in understanding.  “I know how you feel.  I’m often surprised myself.”  She waved the waiter over for another cup, which she set on the other side of the table and filled with chocolate.

“Chocolate?”  She offered with a gesture.  The boy was staring at it, distrust warring with hunger.

He sat down suspiciously, like the chair was going to spring to life and constrain him as soon as his rear touched the cushion. He took the cup, still holding her purse in both hands.

“I don’t want charity.”  He said, but drank the chocolate anyway.

Darcy raised her eyebrows at him.  “You don’t want money when it’s a gift, but stealing is fine?”

He shrugged, his shoulders sharp through his thin shirt.  “ ‘s different.  That’s work.”

“You’re not very good at it.  Maybe you should try doing something else.”  Darcy replied.  She took a long, careful sip before adding, “And even if you don’t want my charity, someone else might.”

Before the boy could stop himself, he glanced at his purple bracelet.  He grimaced.  “Yeah.  Be lucky if I even get back with this. ‘s way too much, ‘s obviously stolen.”

Darcy tucked her hands into her pocket and pulled out a calling card.  “You can give them this, if you’re caught.”

He took it with a bored look that morphed into abject terror. “Archduchess?”

Darcy gave him a very serious look.  “If you call me ‘Your Grace’, I will slap you.  Finish your chocolate.”

He drank it in one go.  “Finished.”

He didn’t go, though.  “You’re an odd toff.  What you wanna give me so much money for?  Maybe I’mma spend it all on whiskey.”

Darcy resisted the urge to roll her eyes.  “Well, clearly I shall be destitute without it.  You’re right, instead of allowing you to purchase food and a shirt that I can’t see through, what I really need is a new set of ribbons.  I am quite sure that whatever I would have spent it on would be much more ridiculous than even the worst use you could make of it.”

He stared at her a bit longer.  “You’re an odd toff.”  He asserted again.

Darcy set her cup down.  “This has been an enjoyable visit.  Would you like to do it again?”

He seemed to have no response other than an open mouth.

“I like this cafe.  I’ll be here tomorrow.  Same time.”  Darcy wrapped smartly on the table to call the waiter over to settle the bill, drawing a coin out of an inner pocket.

She stood up briskly, and extended her hand.  “You may call me Darcy, if you like.”

He glanced between her white glove and his own dirty hand, but took it all the same.  “...Clint.”

 

Darcy had just settled into her window seat with a book when the sky opened into a torrent.  Outside everyone ran for cover under awnings, and Darcy felt a certain envy for them.  She remembered as a little girl running around the lawn in the rain until her dress clung to her legs, laughing.  Storms had always invigorated her.

Her book was forgotten in her lap while she thought and watched the world drown.  How long she sat there before Ian interrupted, she didn’t know.  It took a touch on the arm to rouse her.

“Your Grace?  Er-- there are some… urchins… here to see you.”  Boothby glanced behind himself nervously.  One of the maids was hovering in the hallway looking annoyed.

“Your Grace, they’re dripping all over my-- all over your carpet!”  She hissed, giving Ian an evil stare.  Darcy signed and followed Ian to the door.

In the foyer, Clint was leaving a rather impressive puddle, along with a small red haired girl with a firm grip on his wrist.  He did not look like he had come willingly.

“Hello Clint.”  Darcy said cheerfully.  He started to smile, then winced as the girl twisted his arm.

“Give it back.”  She demanded in faintly accented English.

“Told you, ‘s a gift.”  Clint muttered, shooting Darcy a pleading look.  She eyed the pair.  They were both shivering, hair plastered to their faces.  She thought she could actually see their ribs through their shirts.

“Boothby, build a fire-- and bring me something to dry these two off with.”  She demanded, kneeling to wrap her shawl around the boy.  Somewhere behind her Darcy could hear a maid making small, distressed noises as the water completely ruined the silk front of Darcy’s gown.

 

It had taken a while to convince the little girl to do anything, but once she was full of hot soup Natasha had fallen asleep.  She kept her death grip on Clint’s arm, and they were curled up like a pair of kittens on the duvet when Darcy’s next set of visitors arrived.  

Darcy was in her wrapper in an armchair by the fire, working with the maids to throw together something decent for them to wear when they woke up.  They were both so thin that nothing even came close to fitting.

Ian came to the entrance of the sitting room and hovered there.

“What, Ian.”  Darcy didn’t look up from picking loose the seams of an old shirt.

“Er… there are some…”  He paused, looking distressed.  “One of them may be millitary?”  Ian tried, obviously not sure what to say.

Darcy reached for her robe.

“Ah… Your Grace, it wouldn’t really be appropriate…”  Boothby said, but in a defeated way.  He had no real hope of stopping this.

For the second time that day, Darcy found two people dripping all over her carpet.  This time they were at least adults, although they didn’t look any more well fed than Clint and Natasha.

Upon seeing her at the top of the stairs, the smaller man’s mouth fell open.  His friend seemed to take it with a little more composure, but swallowed hard before speaking.

“Excuse us, ma’am,”  He stated, folding the brim of his hat over in his hands.  “I know it’s too late to call, but… we’re looking for some children.  Small Russian girl with red hair, older blond boy.”

Darcy nodded.  “They’re here.  Would you like to see them?”

“Ah… Yes ma’am.”  He answered, looking at the spreading damp patch around his feet.  The maids watched the men trudge up the stairs with expressions both resigned and disgusted.

Something loosened in both of them when they saw the children.  “They’ve eaten.  I believe we still have some left, if you’ve missed supper.”  Darcy offered.  The man who had been doing all the talking seemed about to refuse when he glanced at his friend.  He seemed to be trying to not shiver through sheer force of will.

“Ah… Yes ma’am, that would be welcome.”  He agreed, and Darcy nodded at Ian.  “Boothby, please warm some soup and bread.  A pot of tea, and some dry clothes for our guests.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”   Ian bowed and left, giving the men another sceptical glance on his way out.

The smaller man started to protest almost immediately.  “I-- no, we can’t--”

His outrage was immediately consumed by a chest-wracking cough.

Darcy raised her eyebrows.  “You can’t eat something warm and dry off before you die here in my sitting room?”

His friend winced, and Darcy wondered if this thin blond man was actually dying.  “If you insist on paying me back I’m sure you can find some way of making yourself useful.”  

“He’s a great artist.”  His friend volunteered, and even though he was still coughing, the other man had enough strength to summon up a glare.

“Fantastic.  I don’t yet have my obligatory rich person portrait of myself surrounded by all my possessions.  You can do it.”  Ian was back with a tray of savories and soup, the tea on a cart outside the door.

“Boothby, I will be retiring.  Please see that our visitors are made comfortable in the guest rooms, they’ll be staying.”  Darcy told him, and he bowed in a sulky-but-resigned fashion.

“Ah--no, we couldn’t trespass…”  The man protested, while eyeing the food on the table like it had been a long time since he’d seen so much of it in one place.

“Certainly you can.  Portraits are laborious affairs.  Who knows how long it could take.”  Darcy told him.  “Months, years.  You can’t rush art.”

He took a long look at his friend, who was recovering by gulping some hot tea.  The color was high in his cheeks.

“Yes, Your--”

“If you call me Your Grace, I will slap you.”  Darcy told him severely, and left the room before he could reply.

 


	3. Contributions

Natasha wasted no time establishing her place in the household.

“Give me sausage.”  She demanded, looking at her bowl of porridge with disgust.  Clint, his mouth full of hot cereal, stared at her.

Darcy looked up from her newspaper.  “Boothby, why are you standing there?  Get the child sausage.”

“Ah.  Yes Your Grace.”  He said, ringing for one of the maids.  Darcy went back to reading, taking occasional bites of her croissant while Natasha watched her with an intensity that was unnerving in such a young child.  

“Why are you a Grace.”  Natasha demanded.  Ian set two blackened bratwurst in front of her, already cut up into small pieces.  She gave it a long appraisal, and didn’t eat.

“Because the upper class likes to spend an inordinate amount of time having their egos stroked.”  Darcy answered, not looking up from her paper.  Clint started coughing, the apparent result of inhaling some of his porridge.

Natasha speared one of her sausage pieces with a fork, and handed it to Clint.  He ate it and handed the fork back, which Natasha used to start attacking her breakfast in earnest.

“She won’t eat anything unless she sees someone else try it first.”  He explained, like it was a weird habit he didn’t understand.  Darcy remembered his suspicious look at the hot chocolate she’d offered him at their first meeting and felt amused.

“Sensible.”  Darcy said, nodding.  “Boothby, from now on you’ll be the child’s taster.  Make sure she sees you do it.”

“Yes Your Grace.”  Ian said, with a straight face.  He looked much less aggrieved than usual, which was a hopeful sign.  Perhaps he was beginning to acclimate to the way Darcy lived her life, and would cease to trouble her when she made unconventional choices.

Probably not, but a girl could dream.

“So.”  Darcy said, closing her newspaper with a crisp noise.  “What can you two do?”

Clint and Natasha looked at eachother, and then back at Darcy as one, not sure what kind of response she wanted.

“You’re obviously too young to contribute financially.  So naturally, you’ll want to contribute in some other way.  I assume you have some talents.” Darcy elaborated.  She remembered Clint’s refusal of ‘charity’, and the men last night insisting that they pay her back in some way.

“I can ‘contribute financially’.”  Clint protested, somewhat affronted.  “I can do lotsa stuff.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow.  “Yes, you are an excellent thief, I’d quite forgotten.  What else are you good at?”

Clint looked down, like he was either ashamed of what he was good at, or didn’t think there  _was_ anything else he had to offer.  It was Natasha who answered.

“Horses.”  She said, decisively.  “More sausage.”

Ian just stood there, as if he hadn’t heard a thing, hands clasped.  

“Boothby, more sausage for the child.”  Darcy ordered, giving Clint an assessing look.  “We could use some help in the stables, if you wouldn’t find it beneath you.  Two silvers a day.”

Clint dropped his spoon.

“I know, it’s not much.  I’m subtracting out the cost of your education.”  Darcy said, pretending to misunderstand his reaction.

“Ah, no, that’s not--?”  He said, obviously not sure where to even begin.

“Of course, I’ll expect you to distinguish yourself.”  Darcy told him.  “I get my ego stroked so rarely these days, and it’s what we soulless rich live for.  ‘Your ward is the brightest boy in the class, wherever did you find him, Your Grace.  He’s so diligent, a credit to you.’-- You know, the usual sort of twattle, that’s what I want to hear.”

She turned toward Natasha before Clint could gather his wits again.  “And what about you?”

Natasha looked up from her second plate of sausage.  “I dance.”

“Hmm.  Are you any good?”  Darcy said, thinking about what it meant to be a ballerina.  It was not quite a respectable occupation, despite its popularity.

Natasha lifted her chin.  “I am the best.”

“Well.  We will find you the best school, in that case.”  Darcy replied.  At present she looked a little small for her age, but perhaps that would change.  She could see that with a little feeding up, Natasha might have to right form for it-- tall and slender.

Finished with her breakfast, Darcy clapped her hands.  “Hurry up then, we have much to do today.”

Clint, who had resumed eating with considerably less enthusiasm than before, looked up.

“Well, I can’t have you go around looking like that.”  Darcy said, gesturing broadly at his clothes.  “Honestly, how can I have everyone tell me how handsome you both are when I’ve got you dressed so shabbily.  They’ll say it anyway, but I’ll  _know_ it’s not true, and it’ll just spoil all my fun.” She signed.  “It’s really the little pleasures in life that make it worthwhile.  I’m sure you won’t deny me.”

Setting her napkin on the table, Darcy let Ian pull back her chair before she stood.  “Boothby, see that something suitable is sent to the guest rooms.  Let the boys sleep as long as they like, of course, but there should be something available for them whenever they’re ready to eat.”

As Darcy left the room to inform the stables to get the carriage ready, she heard Natasha behind her.

“More sausage.”


	4. Heaven

 

As soon as he woke up, Steve knew that something was wrong.  He was too warm and comfortable, wrapped in something clean and soft that smelled like lavender.  Maybe he was dead.

He opened his eyes and found Bucky a few feet away on the mattress, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.  Bucky seemed to sense that he was awake and immediately rolled onto his side to look at him.  

“I’m afraid to leave this room.”  He said, and pulled a face.  “I’ve been awake for an hour.”

Steve groaned and hid his face in the duvet.  “Did that really happen.”  He said, his voice muffled.  “Did we really just show up at some noble’s house.”

“Soaking wet, like stray dogs.”  Bucky agreed.  “There’s a bunch of food on the table, by the way.  It was there when I woke up, but I waited for you.”

Steve continued to hide under the blanket.  “You told her I would paint her, Bucky.”

“I did.”  He agreed.  “I’m hungry, are you finished sulking yet?”

Steve wanted to be too proud to touch it, but his body betrayed him.  His stomach had started growling at just the thought of food, and the reality was better than anything Steve had eaten in years.  The scones were still warm from the oven, with little pots of clotted cream, and the coffee was strong and hot.  He found himself licking his fingers clean after every bite.

“Are you sure that we’re not dead?”  He asked Bucky.  “Because this seems like heaven.”

Bucky laughed.  “What makes you think I’d be here if it was?”

Steve regarded him seriously.  “Well, what kind of heaven would deprive me of you?”

Bucky didn’t seem to know what to say to that.  They were rescued from the moment by two sharp raps on the door, followed by the intrusion of the footman from the previous night.

“Whenever you… gentlemen… are prepared to join the rest of the household, Her Grace and the children are in the sitting room.”

Bucky looked down at the clothing they’d slept in, obviously some cast-offs from one of the footmen, and shrugged.  “I don’t think we’re going to get any more presentable than this.  May as well go now.”  He got to his feet and rolled his shoulders, trying to relax through sheer force of will.

Steve set his jaw and followed suit, refusing to look back at that bed, with its clean, dry sheets.

 

The Archduchess was reclining on a sofa reading, her right hand hovering near a cup of chocolate on an end table.  Her dress was almost entirely black with a grey sash tied around her waist, trailing down to pool on the cushions that propped her up.  The dress had a collar of lace climbing her throat, and it looked both beautiful and choking.  There were shadows under her eyes, and Steve couldn’t help comparing it to how she’d looked last night, in that white nightgown with her wrapper belted at the waist.  The neckline hadn’t been low, but he still remembered her collarbones, the way the pale column of her throat had moved when she swallowed.  He’d seen her through the haze of fever, but even so, he was sure he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

Natasha was curled up under one of her arms, her hair a bright splash against the Archduchess’s dress.  Her eyes looked heavy and sleepy, but at the sound of their footsteps she sat up.  She was a completely different child from the one he remembered.

Natasha had always been fastidiously clean, especially for a poor child, but now her skin shone like she’d been polished.  Her hair had been worked into a series of perfect ringlets pinned back with a clip encrusted with pearls, and everything she was wearing was new-- from her shining black shoes to her blue dress.  When she ran over, Steve felt afraid that touching them would make her dirty.

“You missed shopping.”  She informed them both, lifting her arms at Bucky to be picked up.  He obliged, settling her on his hip.

“We have a tailor stopping by tomorrow afternoon to make adjustments.  I did my best to find you at least a few suitable things, but of course you’ll require a fitting.”  The Archduchess commented, setting her book aside and moving over to a table piled with boxes.  “These, I’m informed by Natasha, will be for ‘Steve’,” She rested a black gloved hand on one stack, “And these will be for ‘James’.  Please let me know if I’ve forgotten anything, I’ve actually never been tasked with outfitting a man before.”

Steve’s mouth was hanging open, and he closed it, feeling foolish.  “Your Grace--”

“ _If you continue to call me that…_ ”  She said, and gave him a dangerous stare.  “I would prefer Darcy, but if you simply can’t bring yourself to comply with my wishes at least downgrade me to ‘ma’am’.”

“...Yes ma’am.”  Steve said, and she smiled at him.  The change it made in her features was striking, and he realized that when her face was at rest that Darcy looked sad.

“Now that you’re up, I should go arrange for some luncheon.  I thought we could discuss my portrait over tea.  We need something to go next to  _that,_ I’m told.”  She gestured at the mantle, where a painting of a stately older man with a large white beard hung.  “You’ll have to come with me tomorrow so we can get the right supplies, I have no idea what an artist’s needs are.”

Steve felt his face go hot.  “Ma’am, as generous as it is, I… don’t know that I have the talent to compare to something like this other portrait.  I haven’t had much formal training.”

“No?  Hmm.  But you have talent?”  She asked, tilting her head at him in a considering fashion.  It was Bucky who answered.  “Yes ma’am, he’s very good.”

“Well, we shall have to get you some formal training.”  Darcy said, like it was the normal course of things.  She looked at Bucky.  “And you, James, what are you good for?”

He gave her one of his more rakish grins.  “Well, not much.  I hear I’m charming about it, though.”

Steve was about to protest, but strangely enough it seemed like what Darcy wanted to hear.

“Excellent, I could use a man like that.  You shall be my escort.  Otherwise I shall have to take Boothby, and he is far too polite.”

Boothby took the insult as his due, beginning to clear out the packages that Darcy had indicated were men’s clothing.  He seemed very young to constantly be in possession of such a long-suffering expression.

Darcy excused herself go speak to the cook, and Steve took one last longing look around the room with its end tables and its velvet sofas.  Everything seemed so comfortable here.

“...We can’t stay.”  He said, expecting a chorus of agreement.  Natasha and Bucky just stared at him like he was speaking in tongues.

Natasha was the first to break the silence. “You’re an idiot.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look inclined to disagree.

“I… no.  It’s not honorable!”  Steve protested, feeling ganged up on.

“You’re an honorable idiot.”  Bucky said, and now Steve was definitely being ganged up on.  He looked at the floor, feeling mulish.  The carpet was cream, worked with an intricate filigree of gold that looked more expensive than anything he’d ever owned.

“Steve.”  Bucky put a hand on his shoulder, and Steve met his eyes reluctantly.  “I understand what you’re feeling here, that we’re taking advantage.  But I don’t think you’re really paying attention.”

Steve shrugged off the touch.  “Bucky, I don’t want--”

“She’s in  _mourning._ ”  Bucky said impatiently, and something clicked into place in Steve’s mind-- the shadow under Darcy’s eyes when they’d first walked into the room, the huge portrait staring down from the mantel.   _Her husband,_ he realized.

“There isn’t anyone else living here, just the servants.  At this time of day there should at least be people dropping by with their calling cards, but no one has.  I think she’s lonely.  I mean,  _look_  at that guy.”  Bucky said, pointing at the stern face in the painting.  “Must have made some waves when he married her.  Maybe she really  _does_ need someone to escort her to keep the old society hags off her back, or so that little punks like Clint don’t try to rob her on the street.”

“I told you, ‘s a gift.”  Clint called out.  From the volume he had to be somewhere in the room, but for the life of him Steve couldn’t tell where.

“...Maybe.”  Steve said, looking at the old, proud man that had been the Archduke.  He wondered if she’d loved him.


	5. A Matched Set

Clint started doubtfully at his shoes.  “They’re purple?”

“Yes,”  Bucky said, adjusting the matching tie and holding the boy by the shoulders to take a better look at the whole picture.  “These are the uniform colors.  And you are going to be wearing them when you come home.”  Clint didn’t comment, but his chin jutted out sullenly.

“You will not find that you have ‘lost’ your tie, or that your suit jacket accidentally fell in the river.”  Bucky continued, taking the bundle of school books from the end table and thrusting them into Clint’s hands.  “You will come home looking exactly as you do now.”

“ ‘S stupid.”  Clint muttered, but he took the books and let Bucky herd him into the other room.  Darcy and Natasha were sitting at a short table, pamphlets spread out in front of them.  “This one has most prestige,”  Darcy explained, tapping her finger on a piece of paper, “But this one has produced more good dancers in the last few years.  What do you think?”

Natasha picked up the second pamphlet and examined it.  “This will do.”  She said, as if it were a great trial to settle for it.  “I shall begin today.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows, but obligingly helped the little girl from the couch.  “Oh, shall you?  Well, we’d better get your dance clothes and ride with Clint then.”

Natasha nodded and ran out of the room.

“I-- you’re coming?” Clint asked, looking very young.  Darcy walked over to give him the same sort of perusal that Bucky had.

“Of course I’m coming.  Very handsome.  It’s so rare to find a man with the confidence for strong colors.  You must not be offended when people are jealous.”  She informed him.  “Not everyone has your bone structure, they are to be pitied.”

Darcy sighed, laying a hand on the side of his face.  “If only you were a decade older.  Alas.”  

Bucky was able to suppress a laugh, but when he caught Darcy’s eye he knew he must look amused, because she winked at him.

Clint looked down at his shoes again, this time a little smug.  “Yeah, well.”  He said, shrugging modestly.  “ ‘s not for everyone.”

 

Bucky glanced back as the carriage pulled away from the ballet school.  Natasha was holding court with a pack of girls who looked torn between confusion and fascination.  “Well, hopefully her teachers like a spirited girl.”  Bucky commented, trying to subtly warn Darcy about the backlash he could already see coming.  “Natasha’s not the ‘Victorian Ideal’ woman.”

“The Victorian Ideal is a farce.  She’s fantastic.”  Darcy said firmly.  “They teach girls that to be a woman is to be a beautiful decoration, but ornaments are fragile.  This world has teeth, and it can take a bite out of you whenever it wants to.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.”  While she was talking, Darcy looked out the carriage window.  He was sure that she was younger than he was, but there was such maturity in her face.  Bucky wondered what kind of a little girl she had been-- if she had been a strong one, like Natasha, or if the world had bitten her.  Broken her.

“You don’t strike me as a fragile woman.”  Bucky decided.  

Darcy gave him a smile, her eyes mischievous.  “No.  But I’m not exactly the ideal either, am I?”

He gave her a long look, taking in her dark hair pulled up elegantly, her pale skin, the curves under her gown.  “Could have fooled me.”

“Oh, nicely done, you _are_ charming.”  Darcy said, and patted him on the head like he was a particularly clever lap dog.  “Save it for when we’re in the shops, though, we need to build an image.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows.  “Do we.  And what image is that.”

“Oh, you know, that you’re hopelessly infatuated.”  Darcy said, pulling a small mirror from a pocket and eyeing makeup.  “Kind of possessive, that’s very important.”  She snapped the compact closed.

“ _No one_ ,”  She said, looking at him seriously.  “Is to touch me.  Not on the hand, no where.   _You_ may touch me, if it is necessary or if it would add to our general atmosphere.  No one else.  Try not to cause too much offense, although some will be inevitable, and some, if you are like me, will be necessary for your mental health.”

When he helped her down from the carriage her expression hardened, but her grip on his hand seemed nervous.

“Are you alright?”  Bucky asked, searching her face.  She took a deep breath.

“Yes.  Just don’t let them touch me.”  Darcy said, and Bucky escorted her inside.

 

“Is… is this _normal_?” He asked her, after the fifth time he had been required to physically block a stranger from putting his hands on Darcy.  “Is it always like this?  How do women go outside?”

“I don’t believe it is.”  Darcy said, holding two pieces of silk against each other to try their effect.  “I mean, I’ve been in public with Jane, she’s quite striking, and yet no one tries to smell her.”

Bucky shook his head, feeling disgusted.  “Well, when you first proposed this, I have to admit I didn’t take being your escort seriously.  I clearly don’t know enough about women.”

“Of course you don’t, that’s why I picked you.”  Darcy murmured absently.  Bucky felt ever muscle in his body tense.  Sensing his change in mood, she looked up from her swatches.  “Well, do you think I let just any strange men stay in my home?  You came highly recommended as a matched set.”

“Oh, did we? By whom?”  Bucky asked, smiling and nodding at a couple passing them.  They both looked offended by the courtesy.

“By Natasha, naturally.”  Darcy told him, and held up the shades she’d chosen.  Bucky nodded, and Darcy waved the shop assistant over.


	6. Erskine’s

 

As soon as he walks into Erskine’s lobby, Steve knows that it’s the right place.  Darcy had come back from her errands with dozens of fliers-- for The London Academy of the Arts, for private masters-- but this was the one that had caught his eye.  The tuition didn’t make him feel physically sick when he thought about it, which was more than he could say about the others-- and Erskine’s offered a scholarship.  

Only one.

The flyer didn’t specify how to apply, and Steve had really come by just to inquire.  But he had fallen immediately in love.

The building had a strange design for an English city.  It seemed to be almost completely made of glass, which Steve found both terrifying and intriguing.  How did they keep a building like that warm?  How in god’s name did they charge such reasonable tuition while paying the window tax on such a monstrosity?  As soon as he went opened the door, he could smell beeswax candles, another expense on top of everything else.  He had no idea how anyone could afford for this place to exist.

But even with such mundane concerns Steve could see immediately why they’d done it.  The quality of the light was incredible, like everything was glowing from the inside.  His fingers itched to paint something, anything, in this place.

The building seemed abandoned-- there wasn’t anyone behind the reception desk, just an old man contemplating a statue.  Steve settled down to wait, pulling out his sketchbook to pass the time.

“Ah, you are an artist.”  The old man said, coming over to look over Steve’s shoulder.  He had a faint accent-- German, or Czech.  Steve had only made the rough outline of the room in a corner of the page.  Paper was expensive, and the sheet was already crowded with drawings.

“You are conservative with your paper.”  He said, nodding approvingly.  “So many draw one little half finished thing, and then they throw it out.  Wasteful!”  He threw up a hand to illustrate his disgust with such people with such vehemence that Steve had to smile.

“I don’t have the luxury.  Maybe if I had the kind of money whoever built this place has…”  Steve said, looking up at the huge windows.  He was still a little in awe of his ability to see so much of the world while he’s inside.

“Ah, you refer to the windows.  The tax is high, it is true, but,”  The man taps the glass with his finger, “You can only call it a window if it is framed.  And so, this whole wall is only one.”

“Even so, the heating…”  Steve said, not willing to give up on his concept of this building as some kind of impossible billionaire’s dream.  If it wasn’t, why wouldn’t everyone live this way?

“It is a special glass that keeps the heat in.  The designer would say it’s a ‘trade secret’.”  The old man said, with a smile that reached his eyes.  “Many people have asked.  This building was something of an experiment, but also an advertisement.  Even those who are not artistic can see the beauty in such a place-- and I imagine he has had many inquiries from those looking to commission this type of glass.  I do not involve myself with his finances, so I cannot say.”

“It is beautiful,”  Steve agreed.  “The light… I’d love to paint in here.”

“Tell me, what would you like to paint?”  The man asked, looking very serious.

Steve paused to consider the question.  “I think I’d like to paint Natasha.”  He decided.  “Ah--she’s a little girl I care for-- she has the most amazing red hair.  I don’t see a lot of colors, but I can see reds… and she’s very fierce.”

“You are colorblind?”  He raised his grey eyebrows, surprised.  “And yet you wish to be an artist?”

“What I  _can_ see is still beautiful.”  Steve answered.  It was a question he’d been asked a hundred times, but this time he didn’t sense any derision behind it.

“Hmm.”  The man said, thoughtfully.  “Yes.  I would like to see you paint this Natasha.  You may come to my school.”

“Ah… Sir?”  Steve asks, confused.  “Are you affiliated with Erskine’s?”

“Affiliated?  No, I  _am_ Erskine.”  The man said, with his eyes crinkling behind his glasses as if it were a great joke.  Steve almost questioned if it was true, but it seemed a strange lie to tell.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”  Steve said, just to be on the safe side.  “I came here today to ask how one applies for the scholarship.”

Erskine looked surprised.  “You have just done so.  Now you will come here tomorrow, and you will paint this Natasha.  That is the test.”

“The test.”  Steve repeated, feeling like an idiot.

“Yes.  You pass, and you may stay at my school.  You fail, and you must leave.”

“But-- so if I don’t get the scholarship, I can’t come back?”

“Just so.”  Erskine agreed.

“How do you have any students?”  Steve blurted, and then felt horrified.

“I do not have many.”  Erskine admitted, not at all offended.  “But they are the best.”

Steve thought suddenly of Natasha, lifting her chin whenever someone asked about her dancing.   _I am the best._

“Yes.”  Steve decided.  “I’ll come here tomorrow and paint Natasha.”

Erskine nodded, as if this was only to be expected.  “You may come when you like.”

Steve shook hands and left, still not certain if any of it-- the old man and the strange, wonderful building-- had been real.


	7. Your Position

Bucky thought it was strange that Darcy called Ian ‘Boothby’.  She had such a general disdain for formality, he would have expected her to call all her servants by their first names.  For the most part, she does.  But not Ian-- he was always Boothby.

At least, that’s what he’d thought before the shopping trip.  

When they returned the house was relatively empty, and they’d both retired to their rooms to recover from the stress of interacting with London en mass.

The guest room looked like a fabric shop was storing excess stock in it.  Half formed outfits were still draped over the chair backs for when the tailor returned to complete their fittings.  It was incomprehensible, this sudden wealth of options, when last week Bucky had been happy to own more than one shirt.  But after today he thought he was beginning to understand it.  Darcy was alone, and seemed to occupy a strange space in society.  She was nobility, but her ascension had been fast, and her marriage short.  No one seemed to know how to address her.  Ma’am, Your Grace, The Dowager Archduchess, The Archduchess, Miss Darcy-- he’d heard her called of of them, and a few other things besides.  She hadn’t even had the time to update her calling cards.

He thought that perhaps was why she seemed to want to reject her position-- because it was easier to accept everyone else’s casual disregard if you’d already decided that you didn’t want them anyway.  He knew something about throwing people away before they could treat you like trash.

Ian didn’t seem like the right person to help her, but he seemed to be the only one who was even  _trying._ The rest of the household treated Darcy with a combination of fascination and confusion.  They had certain expectations that she constantly flouted (often unconsciously) and it seemed as if they had given up trying to understand her.  They simply acquiesced to her requests with bemused expressions, like she was an irrational child they were humoring.

Bucky came across a packet of ribbons mixed into his half of the day’s purchases, and was returning them to their rightful owner when he heard Darcy call Ian by name in the sitting room.

“Ian, when do you think Loki is coming back?” It was a tone of voice he’d never heard her use before.  There was something small and young to it.

“I don’t know, Your Grace.”  Ian at least sounded the same as ever, but Bucky had always thought he spoke a to Darcy with more softness than he showed towards anyone else.

“He didn’t come for the funeral.”  She said, so quietly that Bucky had to take a step closer to the open door to hear her properly.  “I thought… Well.”

“I’m sure that when Master Laufeyson chooses to make London his home again, that he will return to this house.”  Ian said, and there was such gentleness in his voice that it embarrassed Bucky, like he was intruding on a private moment.

He  _was_  intruding on a private moment.  Bucky looked down at the ribbons in his hand, and decided that knocking would be a mistake.  He could still hear her as he backed away.

Darcy sighed.  “Yes.  He and Thor are still… Well.  I know that’s why he left.  And really, it’s better that they’re not coming to blows on the lawn.  I’m being very selfish.”

And in the moment of silence that followed, the floor creaked under Bucky’s feet.  He froze, and heard the sitting room door brush the carpet as it opened wide.

“Good evening.”  Ian said it pleasantly enough, but there was something hard in his eyes.  “Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

Bucky handed him the ribbons wordlessly.

“Very good sir.  Let me see you to your room, sir.”  Ian said, putting a firm hand on Bucky’s arm and steering him down the hallway.

At the door Ian took in the wreck of the room with an impassive expression.  “Here you are, sir.”

“...Ian, look,”  Bucky started, not sure what to say to that blank face, but sure that he should at least say  _something_.

“I am personally gratified that you and your… friend… have chosen to stay for a time.”  Ian interrupted smoothly.  “Her Grace informed me of your success as an escort.  I do hope you will continue to provide such services, while not misunderstanding the nature of your position in this household.”

Bucky thought of the way that Darcy’s voice had sounded when she’d said that name.   _When do you think Loki is coming back?_ Ian, calling him Master Laufeyson.

“I understand my position.”


	8. Mystery

Natasha’s first classes had been a triumph, Clint came back fully dressed, and Steve had some sort of painting interview.  Everyone was effusive over the dinner table, even Darcy, although there was still something shadowed about her face in the quiet moments.  Bucky felt a little outside of himself, like someone else was cutting up Natasha’s meat for her, teasing Clint.  He had sunk into Darcy’s hospitality like a hot bath.  He hadn’t really thought about where the heat was coming from.

The old man on the mantel seemed more foreboding than before, as if he saw all these strange people living it up at his expense, and loathed them for it.

When he glanced at Darcy, he saw that she had been staring at the portrait of Odin as well.   _She hated him,_ Buck realized.  There were a lot of emotions on Darcy’s face-- fatigue, sorrow, anger-- but nothing of affection.  This was not a woman who treasured the little reminders of her husband, who pressed her face to his shaving soap to catch the smell of him.

What had he been to her then?

What had Loki Laufeyson been?  Because that was a name that even Bucky knew.

There were always rumors about the upper classes, but they weren’t something that Bucky had ever taken much stock in.  His focus was firmly on keeping body and soul together-- his, Steve’s, and the kids.  There was very little left in him to care for anything else.

Loki was dissolute, a rake, that much he remembered.  There had been some scandal.  Bucky remembered Darcy’s words, ‘It’s better that they’re not coming to blows on the lawn’, and tried to recall what it was that had happened.  All he could remember was something about an inheritance.

When they got into bed that night, Steve was still bubbling over about the art school-- how amazing the building had been, the light.  Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him like this.  Actually excited about something, his cheeks pink.

The kids had been different at dinner too-- Natasha’s smiles more ready and more genuine, Clint actually  _talking._   He felt like he was the only one who wasn’t being transformed by this.

Maybe it was because it was too easy.  He didn’t trust it.

“Steve,”  Bucky said, once he seemed to have exhausted himself on the topic of Erskine’s,  “Do you recall what it was that happened with Loki Laufeyson?  Someone mentioned his name today.”

Steve glanced up, his head pillowed on Bucky’s chest.  “Um.  He used to be Loki Odinson?  The old Archduke disowned Thor, and for a fortnight everyone thought Loki was going to inherit.  Then he changed his mind entirely, announced that  _Loki_  wasn’t his son… Around the same time that his wife died I think.”

 _And the same time he married Darcy._   Bucky thought, stroking Steve’s hair as he snuggled into Bucky’s warmth.  Darcy kept the house well heated, but old habits died hard.  It was hard to sleep alone now.

He didn’t know what the significance of all those things were.  By the time Clint crept into the room, Steve had been asleep for hours while Bucky watched the firelight flicker on the wall.

He crawled into the bed without saying anything.

“Where’s Natasha?”  Bucky asked, because he’d never seen them sleep apart.

“With Darcy.”  Clint muttered, his face buried in the covers by Bucky’s left shoulder.  “She says she’s ‘working her’, but I think she just likes her.”

Bucky huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh.

“Bucky,”  It was just his name, but there was something vulnerable in how Clint said it, like he was admitting to something shameful.  “Do you think we can stay here?”

“I would like to.”  Bucky said to himself.  “I don’t know.”

Clint nodded.  “It’s good.  For them.”

There was something strange about lumping Steve and Natasha together as the ones that they needed to protect, but it felt right.  There was always something a little innocent about both of them.

“You know I’ll always take care of them.”  Bucky said, because he couldn’t say ‘You know I’ll always take care of  _you_ ’.  Clint didn’t like to admit that he needed help.

“...I like her.”  Clint said softly.

Bucky heard the fire in the grate shift and looked at Steve, warm and dry. 

"I like her too."  He admitted.  Clint nestled into his side, and they waited for sleep to come. 


	9. Inspiration

Natasha and Darcy were already enjoying their breakfast when the boys came down.  Natasha was wearing what was possibly her most elaborate outfit to date, all white with pink and blue ribbons worked into the lace.  She poked skeptically at a strawberry.

“I don’t like it.”  She declared.  Darcy, dipping her croissant into her chocolate, glanced up.

“You’ve never tried it before.”  She reminded her.  “I like it.  Boothby likes it, don’t you Boothby.”

“Yes Your Grace.”  Ian agreed calmly, a spot of cream on his lower lip a testament to the use he’d been put to as a taste tester.

Natasha speared a slice and put it in her mouth.  It seemed to take her a long time to reach a verdict.  Darcy, noticing everyone hovering in the entryway, winked, but otherwise seemed unperturbed, serenely finishing her breakfast as if nothing of import was occurring.

Natasha didn’t voice her feelings, but she did peirce a second slice with her fork.  

“Good morning James.  Steve, Clint.”  She said, nodding to each of them before returning to her paper.  Steve was almost bouncing with eagerness, but Clint and Bucky had dark circles under their eyes.

“So.  You have your painting test today?”  Darcy asked, and Steve nodded, glancing over at Natasha.

“I do.”  He agreed, “Um.  I thought that I would like to paint Natasha.  If she’d be willing.”

Natasha looked up from her breakfast, something close to alarmed.  “I have my classes.  I will not fall behind.”

Steve opened his mouth, and then looked down at the table.  Darcy looked between them.  “What time is your test?  Perhaps you could start, and we could bring Natasha after her classes are over.”

Steve brightened.  “There’s a lot I can do first.  The background.  And he did say ‘anytime’.”

Natasha shrugged, as if this would be merely acceptable, but Darcy thought she saw a little smile.

“Why Natasha?”  Darcy asked, and Steve blushed.

“Because she’s stunning, of course.”  Bucky said, slinging an arm around Natasha and ruffling her perfect hair.  She stuck her tongue out at him.  Ian cleared his throat meaningfully, and Natasha returned to her strawberries and cream with the utmost dignity.

“Clint, will you be ready to leave with Natasha and I, or shall I bring the carriage back for you?”  Darcy asked, finishing her chocolate and gesturing to one of the maids to take it away.  Clint looked up from the two danishes he was trying to stuff into his mouth simultaneously.

“I cun geah,”  He said, and swallowed.  “I can go, I mean.”

“Very well.”  Darcy agreed, helping Natasha down from her seat.  “We’ll just go freshen up.”

Ian followed them into the other room, leaving the boys alone.  Bucky helped himself to an eclair, setting a raspberry tart on Steve’s empty plate.  “Eat something.”  He said.  Steve looked down at the food and smiled.

“Never thought I’d see food and say I’m not hungry.”  He admitted, and took a bite.  Bucky poured them both a cup of coffee, raising his eyebrows at Clint, who shrugged.  Bucky poured him one as well, adding a liberal portion of cream.

“I’m nervous.”  Steve said, finishing his tart in a huge bite.  Bucky regarded him seriously.

“You’ll be fantastic.  You’re a brilliant painter.”  Bucky told him.  Steve searched his face to make certain he was serious.

“I think…”  Steve said slowly, after swallowing.  “I wanted to paint Natasha because she believes in herself.  Like no one I’ve ever seen.  I wanted to… borrow some of that.”

Clint snorted.  “If it works, let me know.  We can start hiring her out.”

Bucky shrugged his mouth around his pastry.  “I’d pay for that.”

“What’da call something like that?”  Clint mused, pushing back his empty plate.  “So we can put it on her calling cards.”

“Natasha Romanov, Professional Inspiration?”  Steve suggested, grinning.

Clint considered this.  “Well, it’s not professional until she’s had a job.”

Steve nodded.  “Right.  I better pay her then.”


	10. The Test

Erskine’s was even more beautiful in the morning light.

When Steve tried the door he expected it to be locked, but for such a heavy door it swung easily open.  He hesitated in the entryway with his pallet in hand, feeling like he shouldn’t enter.  The building seemed so still, but there was a fire burning in the lobby, and the air smelled sweet.

“Excuse me?”  Steve called, and only the sound of the door swinging closed with a thump answered.  “Dr. Erskine?”

There was no answer, and Steve stood lost for a few minutes before he decided that this might be part of the test.

Very conscious of the sound his feet made in the quiet, empty room, Steve opened the blue door on the right side of the lobby.  Erskine had given him a small tour, and he remembered this part of the building.  There had been a series of small studios inside, some with open views, others closed off under skylights for privacy.  He could take an open one.

He’d forgotten that there was also a large, open room that the studios surrounded, with a pedestal in the center for models.  And when he opened the door, there was a model on it.  A woman with light brown curly hair, completely naked, reclining on a sofa.

“I apologize!”  Steve said, immediately turning his back on the room, his heating.  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know anyone would be working in here.”

“It’s quite alright.  You’re Dr. Erskine’s newest candidate?”  The voice came from the left, and Steve risked a glance.  A woman with her dark hair pulled up in a bun was standing in front of an easel, a small smear of red paint on her cheek where the end of her paintbrush had touched her face.

“Yes ma’am,”  Steve said, putting his free hand up to his face to block his peripheral vision.  The woman’s mouth quirked.

“You can call me Peggy.”  She said, and glanced at her model.  “That’s Angie, but I feel this might be a poor opportunity for a proper introduction.  If I shake your hand, I’ll get paint on you, so you’ll have to excuse me.”

“It’s very nice to meet you!”  Angie called from the sofa.

“Yes ma’am, very nice to meet you as well,”  Steve said, keeping his eyes straight ahead.  “I’m Steve.  Er, Steven Rogers.”

“Pleasure.”  Peggy replied, her eyes crinkling with amusement.  “Now, were you looking for something in particular, or just Dr. Erskine?”

“Somewhere it would be alright for me to work?  I thought I there were some open studios in this part of the building.”  Steve said, feeling like he might be being terribly rude to Angie, but he really couldn’t bring himself to look over at her.

“Yes, if you just walk past me, the first two you see are open.  There are some to the right as well, but it seems you won’t be using them.”  Peggy said, and made a little face, presumably at Angie.

“Thank you, ma’am.”  Steve said, and took the first door available to him.

 

Natasha was pretending like she was too tired to walk, and Darcy was letting her get away with it because she liked being able to hold her.  There was something comforting about her smell.  It was a little powdery still, like pressing your face into a baby’s hair.

It was embarrassing to her how much she’d enjoyed having Natasha sleep with her last night-- how much she enjoyed carrying her up the steps to Steve’s art school perched on her hip.  Like she was her child.

That had been the only thing that Darcy had really found to regret about Odin’s passing-- that she would never have children.  She hadn’t had a lot of romantic illusions about marriage, despite her parent’s success at it.  And her expectations for Odin were… Well.  Low would be an understatement.  The only thing she had ever imagined marriage would be good for was the children.

So she had stolen some.  And then when their parents came looking for her, she’d roped them in as well.

It was hard for her to regret it when she had this small, warm body pressed against her.

When Darcy walked into the lobby she found a woman leaning against the counter, her hair curling loosely around her face.  She was wearing a jumpsuit smeared with paint, her hands braced against the counter, and when she saw Darcy she smiled.

“Ah, you must be Darcy.  Steve said you’d be bringing his model by.  I’m Peggy.”  She offered her hand, bare and stained.  Darcy fit her white gloved one into it.

“Yes, this is Natasha.”  Darcy said, lifting the sleepy girl to hold her more securely.  Natasha let her head rest against Darcy’s shoulder, but she examined Peggy with sharp, alert eyes.

“I see.  A man of taste.  I suspected as much.”  Peggy said, nodding to the girl.  “It’s just this way, if you’ll follow me.”

They followed her through a blue door into an open, airy room, where another woman was sitting on a sofa in a kimono robe, drinking a cup of tea.  “Hello!”  She said, waving at them.  “Ooh, is that Natasha?  She’s so cute!”

“Angie, Darcy.”  Peggy said, making a vague gesture.  Darcy bobbed out a quick curtsey.  “Steve’s just in here.”

She opened a door, gave them both a quick smile, and walked away.

Inside Steve was down to his shirtsleeves, the straps of his suspenders hanging down.  His jacket and tie were draped over a chairback behind him.

He looked different like this, his face focused as he painted, absently pushing his hair back from his eyes.  Darcy found her eyes drawn to the lines of his lean muscles under his shirt.  Even though he was still too thin, there was a robustness about him that he hadn’t had at first, and color in his cheeks.

Darcy looked down, feeling embarrassed but uncertain why.

“I am here.”  Natasha announced.  Steve looked up, startled, a smudge of grey smearing under his brush.  

“Oh, good,” He said, looking up at them with a smile.  Darcy set Natasha down, and she arranged herself carefully on the floor with her ballet costume spread out around her.

Steve just nodded, already absorbed in his painting again.

Darcy took a seat on the chair with his jacket on it and tried to ignore the faint smell that came from it, like peppermint and turpentine.


	11. Sleepless

That night when Natasha crawled into bed with Darcy, the heat was oppressive.  She didn’t have a fever, but her little body was like a furnace.  Darcy extracted herself and pulled on her wrapper, for once enjoying the cold floor.  Closing the door behind her, she started towards the kitchen.  There was something unsettling about the house at night.  It felt unnatural, so much stillness in a place so full of people-- and yet she hoped not to find anyone else awake.  She felt different when she got to be alone, like the girl who had helped her mother in her lab, carefully fitting fern leaves in between glass slides.  Who had chosen her father’s work clothes.

Darcy felt her way to one of the sofas and sat, trying to breathe.  It hadn’t really been Natasha’s warmth that had made her feel like she was suffocating.

If there had been a way to do it, Darcy thought that she would have run away.  And maybe there was one; a steamer to America, Australia, somewhere as far away as she could point to on a map.  But that meant making plans in the daylight, and in the daylight it never felt so bad.  There were so many errands-- shops to visit, dinner to plan.  She could keep moving, but the feeling always found her at times like this, when she was alone and it was dark outside.  

Darcy heard a soft sound, like a drop of water hitting fabric, and looked up for a leak in alarm.  There didn’t seem to be anything amiss with the ceiling.

On the sofa cushion beside her, a purple paper flower had appeared.  Darcy picked it up and saw a word in the center.   _Sad?_ It asked, the handwriting messy but still legible.

“Clint?”  She whispered, feeling a bit ridiculous.  Out of the corner of her eye, Darcy saw a flash of movement.  It looked like he had been on top of the china cabinet, but that seemed too much to be believed.

In his nightshirt he looked young, and Darcy found herself questioning the age he’d given her.

“Hello.  Can’t sleep?”  She asked, still whispering.  He shrugged, but took a seat beside her, and Darcy noticed that his skin was white with cold.  She started chafing his fingers in between hers, then hesitated.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed.  You looked cold.”

Clint blinked, still giving her hands the strange look that had stopped her in the first place.  “I’m cold.”  He agreed, and Darcy returned to her ministrations.  

“Why are you sitting out here?”  Clint finally asked.  

Darcy gave him a half smile.  “Oh, I don’t know… Sometimes I wonder how I got here, and it’s scary.”

Clint nodded, like that made sense.  

He was a little boy, expected to sleep alone in a strange place.  Darcy felt a bit ashamed of herself.

“Shall we go back to bed?”  She asked, standing up with his hands still held between her own.  “Natasha might need us.”

“Wh-- Me?”  Clint said, startled.

“It’s not a requirement.”  Darcy assured, and gave his fingers a squeeze.  “But I think we might both feel better with some company.”

“...We all used to sleep together.”  Clint admitted, letting her lead the way.  Darcy thought about what Ian had said about Steve and Bucky’s room-- that there was only ever a need to make one bed.  

_It’s none of my business._ She reminded herself firmly.  They had the right to whatever privacy she could give them.  She was already uncomfortable with the amount of control she had over everyone.  Natasha was the easiest, because it seemed impossible to take advantage of her.  That was why Darcy had connected to her so much more easily.  But the others, especially Steve… She could see them getting forced into things that they didn’t want.

Clint hesitated at the door, taking in the reality of Darcy’s bedroom with wide eyes before squaring his shoulders.  Once he’d climbed in next to Natasha, however, he fell asleep quickly.  Darcy brushed a curl back from Natasha’s face and looked at the two of them.

_I hope I’m good for you._


	12. The Painting

Angie didn’t seem to ever be completely dressed.  It wasn’t that she was being flirtatious, it was more that she seemed to forget.  While Peggy was painting she was understandably naked, but when they paused for a break, Angie would tie her robe and walk barefoot around the school.  Sometimes she’d lean on Peggy to watch the progress of her portrait, but most of the time she liked to wander.  The first time she came in to watch Steve work with her fingers wrapped around a warm cup of tea, he didn’t notice her for half an hour, until she set her arms on his shoulder to get a better view.

“You know, when I saw Natasha, I thought ‘sappy cute ballerina painting’.  Which is better than the last guy we had in here, who just wanted to paint ‘greek goddesses’ like we don’t all know that means naked women.”  She tilted her head, obviously ignoring Steve’s jerk of shock when he’d noticed her.  “Not that I’m against naked women.  Anyway, I like this.  She looks fierce.  Like a little warrior in a ballet costume.”

“Natasha  _is_  a warrior.”  Steve said, blushing but not wanting to move away in case it embarrassed her.  She seemed comfortable in her body in a way that Steve had never seen, completely unaware of impropriety.

She stood up straight to drink her tea, seeming satisfied.  “So.  What’s with the lady?  She your patron?”

“I suppose so, yes.”  Steve said, feeling his face heat even further.  The more progress he made on Natasha’s portrait, the more he had to face the looming spectre of painting  _Darcy._   

Angie made an impressed face.  “Good taste.  How’d you manage  _that?_ ”

“N--” Steve started, and then remembered his manners.  He took a deep breath.  “I don’t know what you imagine our relationship to be, but--”

Angie waved a hand at him.  “Peggy, he’s defending her honor, you owe me dinner.”

“Did he turn red?”  Peggy asked, popping her head into the room.  

Angie sighed.  “Yes, he did, I’ll buy the wine.”

“I thought you’d be too embarrassed to respond properly,”  Peggy confided, winking at Steve, “Just so you don’t misunderstand.  You didn’t strike me as the sort of man to destroy a lady’s reputation to pad your own.”  She paused to examine his painting, and her amused expression dropped away.  “This is quite good.”  She murmured, coming forward for a better view.  “The way you’ve included the scars on her hands, her expression… You haven’t idealized her.”

She reach out a hand, almost close enough to touch the wet paint.  “You can see it here, in her face-- her cheeks should naturally be fuller than this.  Maybe from the dancing, maybe from poverty…” Her fingers moved up to shadow Natasha’s hair, “But her hair, this clip… Someone is pinning these curls up for her at night, and the costume is new.  Her eyes… She’s very strong.”

“That’s what I said,” Angie agreed, sliding her arms casually around Peggy’s waist, “A little warrior.”

Peggy nodded, still absorbed, and then turned to examine Steve, her eyes sharp in a way they hadn’t been before.

“Oh,” She said, surprised, “She’s yours, isn’t she?”

“Yes.  Well, as much as Natasha is anyone’s.”  He amended ruefully.

“What about the lady?”  Angie asked, and Steve couldn’t see anything malicious in her face at the question, just an open curiosity.

“There are two children in my care.”  His eyes flicked to Angie’s arms around Peggy, and he made a decision.  “In the care of myself, and Bucky, that is.  After becoming acquainted with the children, the Lady Darcy offered all of us her hospitality.”

Peggy’s eyebrows rose fractionally.  “I see.”

Angie shook her head.  “You blush too much around women to be a fairy.”

“Angie!”  Peggy said, glancing at Steve to see if he was offended.  Angie shrugged her shoulders, not at all concerned.  “What?  I like that word.  Makes me feel like I have undiscovered magic powers.”

Steve grinned, some of the tension draining out of his shoulders.  “I’ve been called worse.”

“Haven’t we all.”  Angie observed, twisting her mouth.  She gave Peggy a loud kiss on the cheek and stretched.  “Back to the salt mines?”

“In a moment.”  Peggy agreed, her eyes following Angie’s legs as she exited the room.

“You’ve been ill.”  Peggy said, as soon as Angie was gone.  Steve inclined his head.  “Nothing contagious, I’m certain?”

“I would never expose other people to something like that.”  Steve said, appalled by the very idea.  Peggy looked closely at his expression, and then nodded.

“No, I don’t believe you would.  I hope that soon, I can welcome you to Erskine’s as a fellow.  I see you fitting in quite well.”

With that, she left Steve alone, but his concentration was shot, too many images tumbling through his head that he wished he could capture on a canvas.  

Natasha and Clint the first time he had seen them, Clint’s hand flicking out stones with amazing accuracy to stun pigeons while Natasha hovered near the flock, poised to break the birds’ necks.  He had never seen anyone fight so hard for life.

The morning after the first time he and Bucky had been together, how blue his eyes had looked in the early morning light, staring at Steve’s face like he was bracing for him to say he’d changed his mind.  

How Darcy looked in the morning, her hair pulled up in a waved pompadour with one errant curl brushing her cheek, engrossed in the newspaper.  Surrounded by the smell of chocolate and perfume.

He wished that was the only thought that he had of her, but if he was honest with himself, he knew what he would really want to paint.  The way she had looked the first night he’d seen her, her nightdress cut in a shallow V that showed her collarbones.  It had been simple, white, covered by a pale blue robe with aqua velvet ruched kimono sleeves that cut off at the elbow.  Every detail of it felt burned into him.

He liked to think of her that way, as a painting.  It put distance between them.  But the creation of a painting…  _that_ was too intimate to contemplate right now.

Steve shook his head, and tried to focus on shading the contours of Natasha’s hair.


	13. Let Me Help

On their next shopping trip, something went wrong, but not what Bucky expected.

Every time they entered a shop, Darcy squared her shoulders and walked with her head up.  Trying to be intimidating,  _daring_ anyone to disrespect her so she could cut them with a word.  Bucky wasn’t quite that secure--his social status was questionable-- but he’d always been able to turn on the charm.  So he charmed, and he made backhanded compliments while Darcy hid a smile behind her hand-- and, sometimes, he touched her.

The first few times he’d done it, in the service of their charade, he’d felt her will herself into relaxation.  She’d stiffened up when his hand rested briefly on her waist, then breathed out the tension.  Now the contact felt normal, but he still expected her to flinch. 

When they finally extricated themselves from their errands, Darcy was so pale her skin was grey.  She learned against the curtained window of the carriage, and Bucky reached out to press the back of his hand to her forehead, like he would have done to Steve or the kids.  It wasn’t so unusual.

What  _was_ unusual was the way Darcy leaned into his hand before she realized what she was doing.

“I apologize,”  She murmured, shifting to away from Bucky to lay her head back against their seat, “It seems I’m not well.”

Frowning, he turned her face gently with one hand and felt her forehead again.  Her skin felt clammy.

“What are your other symptoms?”  Bucky asked, taking her wrist so he could feel her pulse.  “Nausea?  Do you feel cold, or warm?”

He’d left his hand still holding her chin, palm pressed to her cheek, and just like before, Darcy leaned into it and closed her eyes.  “I do feel a bit chilled.”  She admitted, then pressed her lips together.  Her pulse under his fingers felt fast and thready.

It was a relief when the carriage jerked to a stop and he could lift her down.  When he put his hands around her waist, he saw her wince, but she walked into the house calmly.

It seemed empty, although somewhere upstairs he could hear footsteps, a maid attending to her duties.  Darcy’s eyes darted around the corridor.  He noticed her breathing, shallow and fast as her heartbeat had been, and made the connection.

“Your personal maid-- she’s out?”  Bucky asked, and Darcy’s grimace was all the answer he required.  “Let me help you, then.”

Her eyes widened.  “I-- No, I can wait.”  She said, swallowing, sweat almost visible on her face.

“It’s like you said,”  Bucky told her, “I don’t know much about women.”

It was the first time he had ever admitted it.  People had known-- the kids, some people in the neighborhood, although Bucky tried taking women out.  So no one would think of it, or if they did, could push the idea aside easily enough.  It was dangerous.  Steve had always been the one to put words to what they were, although he was less physically demonstrative.  Less likely to turn a conversation into a kiss.  Bucky had always used his charm like a weapon, until saying anything outright felt dishonest.  He didn't like to say things when he meant them.  It felt unlucky.

She swayed on her feet a little, examining his face.  “...Yes.  Alright.”  Darcy agreed, stepping into the nearest sitting room.  Bucky shut the door behind them, turning the latch to lock the door.

Darcy took a deep breath that seemed to cause her pain, and then began to undo the buttons of her blouse.  It was black, like all her clothing, with three quarter sleeves tiered with lace.  “It’s my corset,”  She explained, not meeting his eye, “I’ll just need a little help with it, in the back.”

The twisting movement required to remove it made her gasp.  Bucky hesitated, then came forward to help her with the tiny hooks that held her long gored skirt together.  The smell of her perfume was mixed with the scent of her skin, and he tried not to notice it.  Tried to focus on getting the waist of her skirt open enough to give him access to the deeper layers of her clothing without letting it fall completely off.

He saw the problem before he had even finished removing her corset cover.  On the right side of her body, the white fabric was stained red.

“You’re bleeding.”  Bucky observed, working the ties of her corset loose in the back before reaching around her body to pop the clasps in the front open.  He tried to peel it off slowly.  Sticking out from one of the ribs of boning was a sharp, flat piece of metal that had pierced through her chemise and into her skin.  It looked like there was almost an inch inside of her.  

When he pulled it out a fresh burst of blood flowered.  Darcy didn’t make a sound, but when she turned to look at him, he saw the impression her teeth had made on her bottom lip.

“Thank you,”  She said, and then looked away, her fingers fumbling for her skirt’s fasteners.  The color had started to return to her skin-- too much color, her blush extending down her neck and into her decollage-- and Bucky remembered the impropriety of the situation.  “I can tend to this now.”

“Yes,”  Bucky said, setting her corset down on the sofa, “Of course.  I’ll just-- take your things to our room for the moment.”

He felt oddly flustered, relieved to be out of the room when he closed the door and left her.  The house was very still, and every footfall seemed enormously loud as he mounted the stairs with the bags and boxes they’d discarded at the door.

Bucky didn’t notice the blood on his thumb until it smeared onto one of his new handkerchiefs as he sorted their purchases.  Clint’s were pale lavender and everyday white, embroidered with spiky flowers and his initials; Steve’s were simple but soft, with red and blue designs worked into the edges.  For himself, Bucky had chosen the plainest he could find, though they still had small black stars.  The drop of blood stained it in a remarkably similar way, a little red starburst in a sea of white.

And instead of laundering it, Bucky folded the cloth carefully and tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket.  It felt right, although he could not have told anyone why that was so.


	14. Dr. Banner

Darcy looked pale during dinner, picking at her food, but she was still lively-- helping Natasha with her food, teasing Clint-- and so Bucky didn’t think anything of it until the meal ended.  When Ian pulled her chair back from the table and she stood, he saw her sway on her feet, pressing a hand into her right side with her eyes closed.  He took a step towards her just as she collapsed.

“Your Grace!”  Boothby said, moving to help Bucky support Darcy’s weight.

“Ian, do you have any smelling salts?”  Bucky asked, hooking his arm under Darcy’s legs to swing her up into his arms.  She was much lighter than he would have imagined.

Across the table, Steve and the children had frozen, Clint with his hand still reaching for another roll.  Natasha was the first follow Bucky to the sofa where he carried Darcy, grabbing her hand and digging into the space between her thumb and index finger.

Darcy’s forehead wrinkled, and then her eyes opened.  “Oh.  That’s strange.”  She said, trying to sit up and then wincing.  Bucky thought of how deep the metal had been imbedded in her side.

Ian had returned with the smelling salts, but Darcy waved them away.  “I have no need of those.  I just need to rest a moment.”  She murmured, and Bucky shook his head.

“I think you need a doctor.”  He said grimly.  Steve flinched, years of ill health obviously flashing before his eyes.

“I don’t know of one that would call at this hour…”  Ian commented, looking lost.  “That is-- her Grace does not yet have a personal physician.”

“Bruce.”  Natasha said, still pressing at a spot on Darcy’s hand so hard that her thumb was white.  She turned to look at Clint, sitting uncertainly at the table.  “Get Bruce.”  She ordered.  Clint blinked, and then scrambled back into his dinner jacket.  He was out the door before anyone had time to protest.

“Bruce is a good doctor.”  Steve assured Darcy, stationing himself protectively nearby.  “You’re not his usual clientele, but… he’s good.”

“Is he your doctor?”  Darcy asked, and Steve shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

“We couldn’t really afford it.  But a couple times he helped us out, and the--”  Bucky paused, “The people he saw around the neighborhood, they all said that he was a good doctor.  Treated ‘em fair.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows a little, obviously reading between the lines, but she didn’t object.  Ian watched the exchange with a frown.

“I don’t understand why you believe this is necessary.  Perhaps Her Grace was simply overtired.”  He ventured.

“Yes, or  _perhaps_ Darcy has a wound in her side that needs to be properly stitched up.”  Bucky replied, failing to keep the vehemence out of his voice.  He should have insisted that she have someone tend to it as soon as he’d seen the wound, but he’d been eager to leave the room.  To get away from her.

Ian stared at him, shocked.

“Oh, let’s not be so  _dramatic_.  I had a little trouble with my corset, that’s all Boothby.”  Darcy said, her voice still much softer than usual.  Ian’s gazed darted between them, and his jaw hardened.

“I see.”  He said, and gave Bucky a small bow.  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I believe I have a servant to dismiss.”

“Ia-- Boothby!”  Darcy corrected herself, but Ian continued to walk away as if he hadn’t heard anything.  

She sighed and slumped back against her cushions.  “Well, there goes another one.”

Clint must have sprinted the entire way, he was back with Bruce so quickly.  They both looked rumpled, although Bucky suspected that was Bruce’s natural state and not the result of his haste.  He was looking around the room with quiet amusement when he noticed Natasha, still sitting on the floor holding Darcy’s hand.

“Look at you, princess.”  He whistled, taking in her brand new clothes, the careful way her hair was quaffed and held back with jeweled pins.  He noticed Steve and Bucky next, and he smiled.  “Well.  I wondered where you four dropped off the face of the earth to.  I guess now I know.”  He clapped Steve on the shoulder.  “Good to see you’re not dead.”

Steve looked down, faintly embarrassed.  “So,”  Bruce continued, “Who’s the patient?  Clint was not that articulate.”

“It’s Darcy.”  Bucky said immediately, before remembering his manners.  “That is, Dr. Bruce Banner, may I present Lady Darcy Lewis, the Dowager Archduchess of Asgard.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows.  “...I suppose I don’t have to ask if you can pay the fee, then.  Well.  What is troubling you today, Darcy?”

Darcy smiled, and Bucky found her beautiful despite her parlor.  “Thank you for dispensing with the title, Dr. Banner.  Earlier today, I had a little trouble with my corset, a broken rib.  I’m afraid that it… stabbed me, and I haven’t managed to get the bleeding to stop.”

Bruce nodded.  “What measures have you tried already?”

“I cleaned it, of course, and applied some bandages.”  Darcy answered promptly.

“What did you use to clean the wound?”

“A clean handkerchief… and brandy.”  Darcy admitted, looking guilty.  Bucky was so disgusted with himself he felt a little ill.   _Some help you are,_ he chastised himself silently,  _too squeamish to…_

He didn’t know what had made him squeamish.  He’d been to war, he’d seen blood and wounds much more serious.  And yet there had been nothing he had wanted more than to get out of that room, away from the smell of her skin.  Away from the soft shape of her body without the confinement of a corset.  It had been almost terrifying.

Bruce nodded.  “The alcohol was good.”  He commented, and then looked around the room.  “I’d like to look at the wound.  Is there a more private room?”

“I suppose we could use the yellow sitting room, that’s quite small.”  She murmured, starting to stand.  Bucky picked her up instead, cradling her in his arms wedding style.  Darcy inhaled sharply, perhaps with pain, but didn’t voice any other protest when he carried her from the room.  Bruce allowed Steve to follow, but blocked Clint and Natasha who were trailing along after him like baby ducklings.

“This is an adult exclusive activity.”  He told them calmly, and shut the door on their outraged protests.

Bucky set Darcy down on the sofa and began helping her with her tea gown unasked.  It was much less complex than what she’d been wearing that morning, the cut of it loose, and when he had it halfway unbuttoned in the back he saw that she wasn’t wearing a corset under it at all, just a close-fitting corset cover with some boning in the front over her chemise.

Darcy seemed to be having a hard time looking at any of them, her cheeks two bright spots of color in an otherwise white face as she allowed Bucky to pull the bottom of her chemise up to expose her side.  Steve was in an almost equal state of discomfort, but he sat down on the sofa next to her and took one of her limp hands.

“It’s going to be alright.”  He told her seriously, making eye contact.  When Bucky started to remove the bandage on her side, Darcy bit her lip and squeezed Steve’s hand.

Bruce had been standing back, unpacking the contents of his black bag, but at this he came forward.

“Darcy, I’m going to have to examine the area around the wound.  Tell me if you feel more sensitivity or pain anywhere.”  He warned, and Darcy nodded.  At his first touch she flinched slightly, but it seemed to be more from surprise than discomfort.  As Bucky watched the doctor press his hand lightly into her abdomen, he thought about the way she had leaned into his hand in the carriage.  Maybe this was the most she’d been touched in a long time, if he discounted Natasha.  He tried to hold her clothing in place, so that only the area that Bruce needed to have access to would be exposed.

When he was finished Bruce walked over to his bag and began dousing his hands in something.  “I don’t think you have any serious internal damage.  I’d like to put in a few stitches.”

“Alright.”  Darcy said, her grip on Steve’s hand beginning to look painful as Bruce approached with a curved needle and a length of catgut.  He was very efficient, and although Bucky knew firsthand how painful stitches could be, Darcy sat through it stoically.  When he was done he rubbed a greenish salve over the wound and applied a clean white cloth to it.

“Keep this clean and dry, and try not to exert yourself for the next few days at least.  Don’t remove the stitches yourself-- I’ll return to do that.”  Bruce instructed, and handed the pot of salve to Steve while Bucky helped Darcy back into her dress.  “You’ll want to keep applying that as well, as often as you can manage it.”

“I understand, thank you Dr. Banner.  Please, speak with Boothby about your fee, and make sure that he hires a cab to take you home.”  Darcy said, starting to regain her usual attitude now that she was dressed as usual.  When Bucky slid his hands underneath her, she placed her arms around his neck.

Now that the adrenaline was passing, carrying her became a different affair.  Perhaps it was that the walk to her bedroom was longer, with stairs and doors to contend with, but Bucky started to feel that same panic from earlier in the day.  She smelled strongly of lilacs now, the wrists where she sprayed her perfume close to his face, and it was impossible to ignore the feel of her body against him when he knew exactly what was under her clothes.  

She set her head against his chest, and he prayed she didn’t think anything of his heartbeat.

When he got her to her bedroom, he wanted to set her down on her bed and leave, but he couldn’t let it be a repeat of last time.

“Do you need me to…”  He hesitated to say  _help you undress._   Darcy shook her head, glancing towards the bell cord near her bed.  “No.  I can ring for someone.”

Bucky pushed his hands into his pockets uncomfortably, but lingered.  Darcy smiled, seeming to find something endearing in his discomfort.  “It’s alright.  You really can go.”  She assured him again.  “Have a good night, James.”

“...Yes.  Goodnight.”  He agreed, and fled.


	15. I Don't

Steve had already gotten into bed when Bucky came back from Darcy’s room.  He’d set her salve on the bedside table, not certain it would be appropriate to go to her bedroom even if Bucky was there.  His face still felt pink from earlier.

He’d seen far more of Angie at Erskine’s than he’d seen of Darcy, and Angie wasn’t the first model he’d ever been around.  By those standards, what had happened today had been tame, especially with the care Bucky had taken with her modesty.

Steve had tried not to look, but he had, long enough to see the deep cut in her side, just below her rib cage.  He still felt like wincing in sympathy.  There had been nothing sensual about  _that._   It was wrong to think about her that way, when he knew that she’d been in pain and uncomfortable to be so exposed to them.

But…  he couldn’t forget the way she’d held his hand.  Like it was actually a  _comfort_  to her.

Bucky opened the door and started silently undressing, hanging his jacket on one of the chair backs already busy with fabric samples.

“How is she?” Steve asked, sitting up so he could see Bucky better in the candlelight.

“She’s fine.”  Bucky said, down to his shirtsleeves.  “Resting.”

He crawled into bed and pinched the candle out with his fingers, a holdover habit from the days when they couldn’t afford to waste wax by blowing it out.

Where he usually would have burrowed into Steve’s side, Bucky lay still.  Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he saw that Bucky was just staring upwards.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, reaching over to press a hand against Bucky’s face.  He opened his mouth twice before he answered, trying to search Steve’s expression despite the dark.

“I didn’t help her.  Earlier, when I should have.”  He admitted.  “I don’t know why.  I helped her with… the corset.”  His voice sped up, hastening to explain,  “Because it laced in the back, she couldn’t be expected to reach it, and there was no one else--”

“Of course, any gentleman would have done the same.”  Steve agreed, passing his hand lightly down the side of Bucky’s face to calm him.  

Bucky looked away. “I should have called for a doctor then, but I-- I couldn’t be in the room with her any longer.  It felt like there was no  _air_.”

“Bucky…”  Steve asked, hesitating to voice the thought, “Do you… Perhaps, might you have some attraction to Darcy?”

Bucky’s eyes widened.  “No.  Of course not.  Steve, you know I don’t…”

“I know that you  _haven’t,_ ”  Steve pointed out, “Not that you don’t.  You were always the one who had to cover for us, since I’m… like this.” He gestured to his body.  “It was always a part you were playing, I can see how you might have never…”

“Since you’re like  _what?_ ”  Bucky demanded.  “Since you’re better than me?  Steve, I would never… It’s still a part I’m playing.”

“You don’t think this is real?”  Steve asked, and thought of how Darcy looked at the children.  “Because I think she cares about us.”

“I-- Yes.  About the kids.”  Bucky admitted reluctantly.  “This-- it’s better than I thought we’d ever be able to do for them.  For  _us._ ”  He emphasised, and rolled closer to kiss him.

Bucky’s mouth was warm and slow, a reassurance.  “You know I’m with you.  Always.”  He whispered.  Steve kissed him back, soft and short.

“And I’m with you, always.”  He promised.  “But if you… it would be alright.  She’s beautiful, and kind… Who wouldn’t want that too?”

“Steve…”  Bucky said, sitting up a little to try to see him.  “I don’t-- I wouldn’t.”

“Alright.”  Steve agreed.  “But it would be alright.  If you did.”

“Why are you doing this?”  Bucky asked, and his cheek felt warm under Steve’s hand.  “I don’t.”

Steve kissed him again, longer this time, holding his face still.  “Are you certain?  You’ve never noticed how good she smells,” He moved to Bucky’s throat, “First thing in the morning?”

He felt the sound Bucky made as much as he heard it.  “Like chocolate,”  Steve continued, licking the skin over where Bucky’s pulse jumped.  “And lilacs?  Because it feels,” He pressed his hand to Bucky’s chest to feel his heart racing, “Like you’ve noticed.”

“And I,” Steve added, biting lightly, “Would understand.”

Bucky shivered, his fingers digging into his waist.  “Are you sure this isn’t about you?”

“Of course its about me.”  Steve admitted, letting Bucky pull him closer.  “Like I said-- who wouldn’t want that.  But,”  He let himself be kissed, harder now, “I’m me.  And you’re you.  Let me live vicariously.”

“Who would want me,”  Bucky asked, his thumbs rubbing the sensitive skin over Steve’s hipbones,  “When you’re around?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure we can find someone.” Steve murmured, pulling his nightshirt off.


	16. Welcome

Steve hesitated at Darcy’s door, then knocked.

“Who is it?”  She called, her voice muffled but lively.

“It’s Steve,”  He glanced down the hall, speaking louder than he was comfortable with, “I have your salve, I thought you might like to have it before you got dressed.”

“You may come in.”

If he’d dared to imagine Darcy’s bedroom at all, Steve would have pictured something austere.  But this room was warm, inviting.  The walls were lined with a cream paper overlaid with a silver filagree that matched the thick oriental rug on the floor, a warm red light from the fire filling the whole room.  He imagined there were colors patterns that he couldn’t see, but it still seemed lovely, shades of grey wound around each other in tight knots.

There were so many candles lit that it reminded him of Erskine’s, although Darcy’s room smelled like lavender as well as beeswax, and it gave him the same feeling.  Darcy was still in her nightgown, heavy velvet bed curtains pulled back to let the light in, a recently discarded book by her hand.

Steve set the little container of ointment on Darcy’s table in easy reach and turned to leave, when she reached out to stop him.

“Steve,” She said, her fingers resting just under his elbow, “Thank you.  For what you did yesterday.  I know that you were uncomfortable,” She looked down, cheeks stained red, “As was I.  But it was a great comfort to me to have you there.”

“Of course,” Steve said, acutely aware of the warmth of her hand, “Anything I can ever do to make you more comfortable.  You have only to ask.”

“Thank you.” Darcy repeated, withdrawing her touch.

 

At breakfast the children were subdued.  Darcy had taken up residence on the sofa in a tea gown, once again without a corset, and it was obvious that she wouldn’t be taking them to school today.  Natasha abandoned her sausage half-eaten to crawl onto the couch with Darcy.  Steve saw her winch at the little girl’s weight, although she didn’t voice any protest.

“Do you go to Erskine’s today, Steve?” She asked, tucking a curl behind Natasha’s ear.

Steve paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.  “That was my intention, yes, but if you--”

“No, of course not, you must go.” Darcy waved a quelling hand at him.  “Isn’t Dr. Erskine evaluating your painting today?  I must confess, I’d like to see it now that it’s finished.”

“Yes, that’s what he said.  But perhaps it won’t take that long… if you’d like to have luncheon together?” He suggested, and then glanced at Bucky, who gave him a small smile.

“If it doesn’t interfere.” Darcy ventured, smiling a little.  “I would hate for you to jeopardize your scholarship.”

“It wouldn’t.”  Steve promised, standing.  “I’ll go now.”

The walk to Erskine’s took Steve through nearly deserted streets.  It had the kind of stillness that felt unbreakable, as if he were the only person in existence and the whole quiet world had been waiting for him alone.  It was like walking through a field of new snow.   

Steve wondered what it would be like to enjoy snow, and winter.  To curl up on the sofa with a cup of mulled wine, and watch the snow fall outside, and think it was beautiful.  Winter had always been the spectre at the door, when the cold would creep into his lungs and he’d cough and cough, until there was blood on his handkerchief and Bucky spent money they didn’t have on doctors who could only tell them what they already knew.  That he needed more food, more warmth, more  _money._  That the price of his life was more than they could ever scrape together.  This winter he would have died, and now… he was walking through puddles in shoes that didn’t leak, in a warm coat.  He could take a deep breath.

He wished there was a way to give this feeling to everyone.

Dr. Erskine was waiting for him in the lobby, his painting of Natasha balanced on the edge of the counter where it could catch the best light.

“I think,” He said, when the door swung close behind Steve, “That this has potential.  It is not perfect… these brush strokes…” He gestured to the area of shadow around Natasha’s head. “But there is something here.  Tell me, what would you paint next?  If you could paint anything.”

Steve considered all the pictures in his head-- Clint doing a handstand in the dirt outside of their old apartment, grinning.  Bucky late at night when he thought Steve was asleep, staring at a handful of coins that wouldn’t get them through the month.  Who they had been.

“I think I want paint the old neighborhood.  What it was like.”  At Erskine’s curious look, Steve glanced down at himself.  “This is all new,” He explained, rubbing the sleeve of his jacket between his fingers.  “I have a patron, now, but…”

“I see,” Erskine murmured, turning back to Natasha’s portrait, “And the girl as well.”  He seemed to light on Natasha's cheeks, her hands, with renewed interest.

“Yes.” Steve acknowledged, wondering if it was a mistake to admit what he had been.

Erskine nodded to himself.  “I would like to see them-- these people, from your neighborhood.  You will paint them for me.”

“I… So I can keep coming here?”  Steve asked, trying desperately not to misunderstand him.

“Yes.”  Erskine said definitively, offering Steve his hand.  “Welcome to my school, Mr. Rogers.”


	17. Genetics

Steve walks in with more color than Darcy has ever seen in his face.

“You got the scholarship!”  She guessed, delighted.  He smiled, for once not looking down to dull its brilliance, and it was breathtaking.  It took conscious effort to not look away or blush.

“He said I can come back.”  He acknowledged, sitting down on the sofa next to Darcy.  There was the faintest sheen of sweat on his forehead from the walk, but he seemed invigorated.

“That’s fantastic, Steve.  I’m so happy for you.”  She squeezed his hand, not considering that she wasn’t wearing gloves.  They’d touched skin-to-skin during Dr. Banner’s visit, but that had been different.  The entire situation had been so irregular.  Now they were in the sitting room, alone, and she had just covered his bare hand with her own.  His skin was cool from the outdoors, or perhaps hers had just been warm, but the difference seemed important somehow.

Darcy knew she should pull her hand back, but she left it there for a moment, as if she’d forgotten about it.  The skin over his knuckles was rougher than the rest of his hand, and she wondered how it had gotten that way, stroking her fingers across them.  She saw Steve’s eyes go wide and pulled her hand back, burying it in the skirt of her gown and looking away.   _He’s not interested in women,_ she chastised herself, feeling deeply ashamed,  _and even if he was, you have all of the money here, all of the power.  He’d be afraid to say no._

Somewhere in the afterlife, Odin was laughing.  Darcy shook her head to dispel the thought.

It was a relief to both of them when Bucky arrived with Ian in tow, and they could distract themselves talking about the children and eating finger sandwiches.  

Steve was animated, describing the painting he wanted to try next, and Darcy was glad not to hear her name mentioned.  If he had been made truly uncomfortable, surely he would want to hurry through his portrait of her to discharge the obligation.

There was so much strength in his hands-- the price of being an artist, perhaps, although she couldn’t imagine how painting would have roughened his knuckles.

“--feeling well?” Bucky’s hand against her forehead startled her back into the thread of the conversation.  He frowned.

“You feel warm.”  He said, checking the temperature of her cheeks, and she had to admit that his hand felt just as cool as Steve’s had.

“Call Bruce Banner.”  Bucky told Ian, who bowed and hurried from the room.

“Is that really necessary?”  Darcy protested, wondering if half of the heat in her face was the result of embarrassment.  “If anything, it’s a very mild fever.”

“Maybe not, but if it’s infected… I’ve seen men die from less.” Bucky looked grim.

Darcy took a deep breath, and felt the wound in her side pinch in protest.  “Alright.  I suppose I should go… prepare.”

Inside her bedroom Darcy undressed cautiously, not certain how much to take off.  In the end she stripped down to her chemise and stockings, wrapping her robe over them self consciously.

There was a light knock on the door, and Steve opened it enough to be heard.  “Darcy?  I-- would you like me to sit with you?”

Darcy pulled her feet up to hide them under the her blankets.  “Yes.”  She answered, biting her lip.

Steve left the door open and sat down on the nearest edge of her bed.  Without prompting he took her hand, and Darcy thought of the promise she’d just made herself with despair.

 

Bruce seemed concerned about her temperature, but not unduly so.  “The site doesn’t seem inflamed.”  He commented, pressing the skin around Darcy’s wound lightly.  She should have been more uncomfortable with his touch, but there was something about him that put her at ease.  An air of professionalism, perhaps.  She couldn’t imagine him trying to take liberties, not that such a thing would be possible with Bucky so close at hand.

“If you like, I could recommend a poultice,”  Bruce began, allowing Bucky to cover her side with a clean square of fabric.  She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, reaching for her bedside table.

“Why do you have this?”  He whispered, picking up the framed daguerreotype of Darcy’s mother, staring at it as if he’d seen a ghost.  It was an old photograph, and Betty was still very young in it.  She’d had it taken at a scientific exhibition, with a beau she’d had before she’d met Darcy’s father.

“What do you mean?  That’s my mother.”  Darcy answered, confused.  Bruce turned his stare on her, his eyes searching her face.

“...I can see the resemblance.”  He whispered, nodding.  “Where-- how is she?”

“My mother passed.”  Darcy said simply, and when she saw his stricken face,  “Five years ago, in childbed.  My brother, as well.”

“I see,” Bruce said softly, stroking the glass that covered the photograph, “She was… a very brilliant woman.”

“Yes, a great scientist.”  Darcy agreed, and Bruce looked shocked.

“But,” He swallowed, “Her father.  He was very strict.  I wouldn’t have thought… That is, she was promised to Major Talbot.”

Darcy made a face.  “Colonel Talbot, now, yes.  Mother always said she would have rather died.”  She hesitated, taking in how fragile the man seemed.  “Dr. Banner, might you have been her beau?  She spoke to me of a young man that she had had an… association with.  She said he didn’t have much means, and her father drove him off.”

Bruce looked back at Betty’s picture.  “Yes.  I knew her.  She must have been quite young, when she had you.”

“Sixteen.”  Darcy agreed, and Bruce’s head jerked up.  “My grandfather sent her to some boarding school, and while she was running away, she met my father.  He was a vidame-- that is, a very minor french nobleman.”  She explained, “The title is quite defunct.  I suppose it’s gone completely now, as I had the audacity to be born female.”

“Sixteen.  You’re quite sure.”  Bruce said, scanning Darcy’s face and hair again.  “You can’t be that young.”

“I will try to take that as a testimonial to my vast maturity.”  Darcy rejoined, smiling to show that she wasn’t offended.

Bruce looked around Darcy’s bedroom, taking in the opulence with a blank look on his face as if he couldn’t absorb any more information.  “But she was still a scientist.”

“Oh yes.”  Darcy agreed.  “You can read about some of her discoveries, although I’m afraid they’re all only by her first initial.  She did quite a lot with plant genetics and classification.  She always loved green things.”

Bruce laughed, then covered his mouth.  “I’m sorry.  It’s quite a shock, to learn all this.  Your father-- he was good to her?”

He winced as the words left his mouth, afraid of the offense it must cause, but Darcy held up a hand to stay him.  “My father was a very kind man.”  She assured him.  “My mother was quite unconventional, but he never tried to… curtail her, or make her be less.  He was quite proud of her, and her accomplishments.”

Bruce nodded, some tension draining from his shoulders.  “I should like to… If he were willing to meet me, I should like to thank him.”

“I’m afraid he has passed as well.  Two years ago.” Darcy said, and looked away.  Her mother was an old wound, but her father was much more recent and her feelings were still a little raw.  Steve tightened his grip on her hand and Darcy smiled at him.

“When your father passed… there wasn’t much money.”  Bruce said, and Darcy raised her eyebrows at the certainty of his tone.  It didn’t seem to be a question, but the man still looked pale, and she decided to look past the impertinence.

“I was fortunate to have a very good friend-- a scientist that my mother had known-- who was looking for a good assistant.”  Darcy shrugged.  “I’m not a scientist, but I’ve seen enough labs to know the basics, and I believe Jane wanted the companionship more than anything.  You may know of her mentor, Dr. Erik Selvig?”

“He wrote those papers, with Loki Laufeyson.”  Bruce murmured, his eyes darting back and forth as he tried to remember.

“He was Loki  _Odinson_  then.”  Darcy emphasised.  Bruce read something in her face, because he didn’t say another word about the man.  

He stared down at Betty’s photo for a silent minute before he remembered himself.  “Yes.  Your treatment-- I will leave a list of ingredients with your footman?”

“Yes, thank you.”  Darcy agreed, watching him put her mother’s portrait back on her bedside table with obvious reluctance.  “Dr. Banner?  Would you want to keep the photograph?  As a keepsake.  As I recall, it would have been taken with you-- you must have fond memories of it, and I have others.”

“I-- I couldn’t.”  He said, but he was already reaching for it.

“Keep the frame as well.”  She insisted, when he seemed to be about to open the back.  “It’s very fragile, I’d be afraid to remove it at this point.”

“I will never be able to repay you.” Bruce said seriously, tucking the small frame carefully into his jacket.

Darcy shook her head.  “No.  It was a pleasure to meet someone who obviously felt such fondness for my mother.  When the loss is less fresh for you, you must come for tea, and we’ll reminisce.”

“Perhaps.”  Bruce said, collecting his bag and letting Bucky show him out.  Darcy expected him to follow, but Bucky let the door close behind him.

“Darcy-- How old are you?” He asked, and she saw Steve frown at his bluntness.

“Nineteen.”  She answered readily, and she felt Steve’s jerk of shock.

“I-- he’s right.”  Bucky said dumbly.  “You’re very young.”

“And  _vastly_ mature.”  Darcy agreed, withdrawing her hand from Steve’s to make a shooing motion at them.  “Now go collect the children or something, I need to dress.”

After they cleared the room, Darcy thought about Dr. Banner’s curly hair.


	18. Loki Odinson

Steve had never liked the idea of Odin.  Maybe he had never liked the idea of Darcy having a husband, but  _that_  husband seemed almost unfathomable.  It wasn’t just his portrait, as severe as he looked-- his reputation was formidable.  He didn’t seem like a man who laughed, who would have touched Darcy lovingly.  

She flinched too much for him to believe that.

The idea sickened him.

“How old did you think she was?”  Bucky pointed out practically, trying to calm Steve’s frantic pacing.  “I assumed early twenties.  It’s not that different…”

Steve wasn’t sure who Bucky was trying to convince.  He hands kept occasionally clenching, as if a thought had crossed his mind that he wanted to fight.

“She was an orphan, with almost no financial means, barely an adult… not even at her majority.”  If they hadn’t been in the bedroom, Steve would have been yelling, but he was very conscious of how close they were to the room where Darcy slept, and he was loath to disturb her.  “What kind of gentleman…”

“A shitty one.”  Bucky said simply.  “Why do you find that shocking?  Steve… you’ve never been out with her.  They’re  _all_  like that.”

“What do you mean by that?”  Steve paused in his pacing.

Bucky shrugged, climbing in between the sheets of their bed.  “I mean,” He loosened the ties at the end of his night shirt, “That I spend a large part of every day keeping old, rich men from trying to trip and ‘accidentally’ put their hand down the front of her dress.  I mean that when you are rich, and you have always been rich, you think of things in different terms.  You feel entitled to whatever you want, even if it doesn’t want you back.”

Steve felt that sick feeling push up his throat again.  “I can’t... fathom that.” He flopped his hands in the air, trying to articulate, and then sat down on the edge of the bed with his shoulders slumped, defeated.

Bucky grimaced.  “I can’t imagine what it was like when Ian escorted her.”

“Ian…”  Steve shook his head, the man’s overprotectiveness taking on an entirely new context.

He was slipping into bed beside Bucky when something crashed outside their room, like a vase smashing, followed by voices calling out in panic.

Bucky was into his pants and out of the room before Steve had time to react.  Through the door Bucky left ajar he heard the murmur of Darcy’s voice in the hall, but the words were muffled.

Steve scrambled into his trousers and down the stairs, where a dark haired man in an expensive suit was sitting next to a pile of shattered glass, an end table on its side beside him.

Most of the servants had gathered on the landing to stare, only Ian taking the initiative to approach.  The man was dressed impeccably, the fabric of his suit smooth and expensive even to Steve’s inexperience eye-- he didn’t seem to be a burglar.

Darcy seemed to be feeling her way across the carpet, trying not to cut her feet on the shards of broken glass, and Bucky took her arm to steady her, casting a suspicious glance at the man on the floor.  He tried to stand again and then fell, looked faintly surprised, and began to laugh.  There was a sharp edge to it, something close to hysteria.

Darcy rushed over to grab the man’s shoulders, trying to haul him up bodily, Ian moving to help her.  The man’s eyes rolled up to look at her and he smirked.  It was hard to classify the things Steve saw in his face, something close to tenderness layered under contempt.

“Hello,  _Mother._ ”  He said, his drunkenness affecting his voice only minimally.  His accent was smooth and posh.  “I see you’ve been busy, in my absence.  Congratulations.  Finally liberated!”

“Don’t be absurd, Loki,”  Darcy chastised absently, touching the man’s forehead.  It looked damp and clammy, but what Steve was struck by was how casually she had put her hands on him, one arm still around his waist to support his weight.

He turned his gaze on Ian and smiled brilliantly, as if the sight of the man delighted him beyond measure.  “Boothby!  You’re still here?   _Fascinating_.”

“Did you know,” Now he seemed to be addressing Bucky, his wide smile still in place, “That this man was one of Odin’s most favored attendants?  I would have thought he’d have gone with Thor!  But, alas, it seems he was  _drawn_ by my little mother’s many charms.  As it seems so many are.  She  _is_ charming,”  He leaned forward, his voice lowering conspiratorially, “Don’t you think?”

“I will drop you, Loki Odinson,”  Darcy told him, hauling him back, “See if I won’t.”

Loki started to laugh again with that same manic, mad edge to his voice.  “Loki  _Odinson.”_  He said, and then cackled even harder, as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“Your Grace, please allow me to settle Mr. Laufeyson into his chambers.”  Ian protested, attempting to take and even larger share of Loki’s weight. “You should be resting.”

“I’ll take him.”  Bucky offered, and Darcy ceded her position to him.  Bucky supported the other man easily, although his expression was less than pleased.

“Oh, he’s quite strong,  _Mother_ , I approve.”  Loki said, lifting his eyebrows.

“ _Frigga_  was your mother.  You do her a disservice.”  Darcy said, and it was amazing to Steve how much authority her voice contained, how straight and upright her posture was, barefoot and in her nightclothes.

For a moment Loki’s face went blank, and he attempted a bow that tipped Ian forward while Bucky remained still.  “Ah, but what disservice can I do her, that my ‘father’ has not already accomplished?”  

Beneath the bitter words there was a sort of frailness.  Darcy glanced at the maids arrayed on the upper floor, and her expression hardened slightly.  “Yes,”  She agreed, not lowering her voice, “He did her many disservices.”

Loki ginned, his smile too wide.  “Yes, he was good at that.  Never kind to  _mothers_ , was he, little mother?”

“You are a drunken annoyance,”  She informed him, “Go to bed.”

Bucky and Ian seemed to take that as their cue to drag the man off bodily while he laughed at them.

The rest of the household seemed to settle slowly back into their rooms, like the sea going out during low tide, but Darcy remained near the front door looking at the fragments of broken vase scattered all around her.

“Darcy?”  Steve asked, hesitant to interrupt her reverie, “Do you require assistance?”

“Ah,” She looked around the mess as if she’d forgotten about it, “Yes.  That would be welcome.  Thank you.”

Her hands seemed very cool to Steve, although the hall didn’t feel as chilled as all that, especially compared to her head earlier in the day.  When he pressed a hand to her forehead she laughed.

“I’m fine, Steve.”  She promised, but didn’t imediately let go of his hand when they reached the stairs.


	19. Distrust

As soon as the vase had broken in the entryway, Clint and Natasha had hid, with a skill and speed that Darcy found both impressive and heartbreaking.  It was impossible not to imagine where they’d learned it, although she couldn’t imagine Bucky or Steve ever beating a child.  When she’d tried to explain that no, Loki hadn’t been  _angry,_  he had just broken something on accident because he was drunk, Clint’s face had become frightenly still.  He’d grabbed Darcy’s hand not as if he were afraid, but as if he thought  _she_ might require the comfort.  She wondered if he was imitating Steve.

Clint wouldn’t go near Loki, but he won’t go very far away from Darcy when he was in the same room as her, either.  All through breakfast he ate without taking his eyes off of the man, almost biting his fingers when he got to the end of his danish.

Natasha’s distrust seemed to have equal depth, but less silence.

“You don’t live here.”  She told him when he sat down across the table from her.  “Go home.”

Loki, occupied staring distastefully at the tart on his plate, glanced at the girl with a raised eyebrow.  “And  _you_  live here?”

“Yes.”  Natasha said firmly, spearing a strawberry slice with her fork more aggressively than was necessary.  “And you don’t.  So go home.”

“It happens that this  _is_  my home, urchin.”  He said, some of the vehenance bled out of his words by what was obviously a fairly debilitating hangover.

“I thought the residence was yours?”  Steve asked Darcy, frowning.  He’d stationed himself on the other side of Natasha, occasionally touching the hem of her dress or her arm while the little girl steadfastly ignored his attentions.  She seemed relaxed by it even so, her shoulders less tightly pinched together than they had been when Darcy had helped her dress for the day.

“It  _is_ ,”  Darcy said, giving Loki a pointed look, “But as it was in Loki’s family for generations, I can understand his attachment.  And as he is my son-in-law, he is welcome to make it his home at any time he wishes, provided he expends a modicom of effort to ‘play nice’ with the other members of the household.”

“Oh, I should ‘play nice’, but  _she_ gets to tell me to ‘go home’?”  Loki protested, accepting a cup of milky tea from Ian.

“That was rude.”  Darcy acknowledged.  “But, as Natasha is five years old, and you are not, I believe I can hold you to a higher standard of behavior.”

“Yes,  _Mother._ ”  He muttered, making a face of disgust after his first sip.  “Boothby, you’ve scorched it.”

“My apologies, Master Laufeyson.”  Ian said calmly, moving to remove the tea, but Loki waved him away, drinking it with an expression of the utmost distaste.

“Clint, would you like to get changed for school?”  Darcy asked, noticing that he seemed to have finished eating but hadn’t moved from the table.

“ ‘M not going today.”  Clint muttered, staring at Loki.  He looked amused by the attention, giving the boy a wide smile.

Darcy frowned.  “Clint--” She started, not sure what to say to convince him.

“I’ve got it, punk.”  Bucky said, his tone entirely sincere-- as if he were taking the boy’s concern’s seriously.  When Darcy noticed the way Bucky had stationed himself close to Loki, like a guard, she thought that he might share them.

Clint and Bucky made eye contact, and whatever silent communication took place, it seemed enough to convince him to leave the room long enough to change.

“Yes, well, as  _heartwarming_  as your welcome has been,”  Loki collected his napkin from his lap and dropped it on the plate in front of him, “I’m really only in town for the Stark Science Symposium.  Once that’s over, you may return to happily playing house, free from the burden of my presence.”

“Oh, are you presenting?”  Darcy asked, surprised but happy to be so.  She hadn’t thought any of Loki’s passions had survived in his dissolution.  “What day?  I must attend.”

He shrugged his shoulders negligently, as if it didn’t matter.  “Oh, sometime Friday I believe.”

The last day was when the most celebrated speakers presented-- Even with her newfound status, Jane had only managed Thursday.  “That’s wonderful.”  Darcy told him sincerely.  “I’m so happy for you!  Your mother would be proud.”

“It’s mostly her work.”  Loki muttered, uncomfortable with the praise.  He got to his feet.  “Speaking of my work, I must attend to it.”

“Of course.  Will you be eating luncheon with us?”  She asked, and Loki cast a look around the disapproving table.

“No,” He drawled, focusing on Bucky in particular, “I don’t believe I shall.”

When he left the room the atmosphere lightened, and Darcy found she was the only one who didn’t suddenly have a renewed interest in her food.

Steve left for Erskine’s after breakfast, and the rest of the morning fell into its usual routine.  Although Clint seemed hesitant to get out of the carriage when they arrived at his school, after another exchange of glances with Bucky he left them alone.

It seemed to be what Bucky had been waiting for.

“So, this Loki-- I’ve heard things.”  He said, making eye contact that made Darcy a little uncomfortable in its intensity.  “Are you certain you're alright with him staying in the house?”

“Of course,” Darcy says, and drops her gaze to her lap, just to escape the seriousness of the way that he was looking at her. “It’s only for the week, in any case.”

He slid his fingers under her chin and tilted Darcy’s head until she was looking into his eyes again, and Darcy was struck by their color.  They were the same shade as a topaz pendant her mother had worn when she was a girl.  

“Tell me, if he’s dangerous, or you need him to go.”  He insisted, and even though he’d forced her to meet his eyes, his touch was light.  “I can take care of you.”

Darcy couldn’t think of a thing to say to that, her heart beating bewilderingly fast in her chest.  She tried to remember what had happened to that necklace-- she thought she must have sold it, in the haze of her father’s death, when she’d been desperate for any dollar she could lay her hands on.

If the carriage hadn’t jerked to a stop then, Darcy thought he might have kissed her.

She didn’t know how to feel about the fact that she would have let him.


	20. Value

When Peggy walked into Steve’s studio and saw Darcy asleep on his couch, she raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, turning her attention to the first lines of his new painting.  Clint was sitting on a crate with his arms braced on either side of his legs in his shirtsleeves looking bored while Steve cemented the outline of his arms.

“For a child, he has some impressive muscle definition.”  Peggy commented, and Clint took immediate offence.

“ ‘M not a child.”  He muttered, walking away.  Steve looked down at his half-finished outline and sighed.

Peggy made a face, watching Clint crawl onto the couch with Darcy and fling his arms over his head in a huff.  “What did I say?”

Steve shrugged, dabbing his brush into a smear of light brown paint to begin texturing the crate.  “Clint’s very sensitive about his age.”

“I see,”  Peggy murmured, examining Steve’s work and pointing out a strange patch of shadow wordlessly.  “You know, this girl of yours… she’s very familiar to me.”

“Girl of mine?”  Steve said, frowning in concentration.  

Peggy nodded at the couch.  “The Lady.  Darcy.”

Steve turned to look at her, her hair coming down from its pompadour in small, wavy tendrils.  Clint was looking up into her face until he noticed that he had an audience, crossing his arms defensively over his chest and turning his gaze to the ceiling.

“I can’t place it, but… I know I’ve seen her.”  Peggy continued, tapping a finger to her lips.  “Has she been painted?”

“I don’t believe so… I’m meant to paint her.”  Steve admitted, tracing Darcy’s features with his eyes.

“Little nervous?” Peggy guessed, taking in his expression.  Steve smiled, looking down at his paintbrush.

“Of course.”  He admitted, “She’s done so much for me-- for us.  I want to do her justice.”

“Speaking of ‘us’, Angie tells me we’ll be meeting this ‘Bucky’ of yours soon.  He’s going to be in the painting as well, correct?”  Peggy nodded to the blank space on Steve’s canvas.

“Yes.  I’m not certain why he didn’t come today…”  Steve said, and then remembered Clint’s behavior over breakfast.  Perhaps the boy hadn’t been willing to let Darcy out of his sight.  There had been something strange between Darcy and Bucky over luncheon as well-- as if she were afraid to look at him.

_Maybe she just wanted to be alone,_ Steve thought, considering how rare a commodity it might be for Darcy.  While Steve was painting and Clint was a model, it might be just as good as solitude, he supposed.

Peggy was still studying the beginning of the painting, the outline of Clint’s face just starting to take shape.  “Why him?”

Steve added a dab of color to Clint’s arm.  “Because this was important.   _We_ were important.  I want people to see that.”

“Like she did?” Peggy asked innocently, and Steve felt himself blush.

“That’s what I thought.”  She said cryptically, and left Steve alone with his painting.

He remembers what he’s trying to put on the canvas only in flashes.  It was last winter, and he was a curled up body in a bed, coughing blood into his sheets.

Clint had come home bleeding and sullen, and Steve had watched Bucky sew him up.  He hadn’t been able to follow the thread of the conversation, but he still remembered the blood on Clint’s arm, on Bucky’s curved needle as he worked it through the skin.  Something about their body language had told him that they were almost out of money-- that Clint had gone out to steal something.  And that Bucky had let him go.

He still hadn’t decided if he wanted to include himself.  It seemed too melodramatic somehow, even though that was how it had been.  He wanted people to see  _them_ \-- he didn’t know how he felt about them seeing him.  If he even thought he was worth seeing.

_Was I as valuable as they were?_ He wondered, adding shadow to Clint’s arm.  He didn’t know the answer.


	21. The Kiss

It was impossible to relax around Bucky now.  Her shoulders tensed in anticipation of his touch, but… she wanted it.  She wanted him to rest his fingers lightly on her waist when someone spoke to them in a shop.  She wanted him to press the back of his hand to her forehead again, as if he cared about her.

_This isn’t so much to ask for,_ she thought as she watched Bucky laugh and deflect someone from taking her hand, his fingers brushing her wrist.

She wondered if this was how men who had mistresses felt, if they were as ashamed of themselves as she was.

As soon as they returned home Darcy dropped her bags at the door and fled.

Darcy had her head against a wall, trying to breathe through whatever it was she was feeling when Bucky knocked.  “Darcy?”

“Yes?”  She replied, and he opened the door, raising his eyebrows when he saw her.

“Darcy?  Is anything amiss?”  He reached out to feel her forehead with the back of his hand, just as she’d wanted him to, and she was too weak to move away from it.

“You don’t feel that warm,”  He murmured, moving his hand to her cheek, “But you’re flushed.”

“I’m fine,” She said, finally taking a step back and turning her eyes to the floor.  “I feel quite well.”

He followed her.  “Are you certain?  You seem… You’ve been so quiet.  Is it Loki?”  He turned her face up with his fingers under her chin, as he had in the carriage.  “I told you, I can make him go.  You have only to ask.”

“I-- No.  That’s not it.” She said, and at the breathless sound of her voice she saw his eyes widen slightly.  She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her.

When he pressed his lips against hers, Darcy heard herself make the strangest sound, something like a gasp.

She didn’t know what to do with her hands, pull him close or push him away, and so they remained buried in her skirt, her fingers fisting into the fabric.

When he opened her mouth, she tried desperately not to whimper.  He pulled her against him with both hands cradling her face, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

_Stop it,_ she told herself, hearing her fast breathing when he finally broke away.

Bucky pressed his hands to her cheeks,  “You’re warm now.”  He murmured, and kissed her again.

_I can’t, I can’t do this,_ she thought, but she pressed herself against him until she could feel his heartbeat.  He smelled almost sweet, like almonds.

Neither of them heard Ian until there was a tap on the door.  “Your Grace?”

Darcy came back to herself feeling dizzy.  “Yes, Ian?”

Her voice was nowhere near normal, but perhaps through the door it sounded close enough.

“Mr. Rogers has returned.  Shall I begin laying out luncheon?”  Darcy glanced at Bucky at Steve’s name, but he seemed unperturbed.

“Yes, thank you.”  She answered, and closed her eyes, sick at the prospect.  When his steps receded she opened them to see Bucky watching her.  She bit her lip punitively.

“We should go.”  She said, refusing to look at him.

Bucky pressed his thumb to her mouth and it came back bloody.  “You hurt yourself.”  He said slowly, staring at the red smear.  “Darcy…”

Now that she saw it she could taste the blood welling in her mouth, copper and salt, feel the sting where her teeth had broken the skin.  She almost wanted Bucky to kiss her again now, so that it would hurt.  Maybe then she’d remember it wasn’t something that she should be doing.

“We should go.”  She said again.

Bucky glanced from her face to the blood on his thumb.  “...Yes.  I’ll go.”  He agreed, and left her alone.


	22. Apologies

When Darcy begged off of luncheon to lay in bed with a ‘headache’, she expected one of the boys to knock on her door-- but they left her alone.  She pulled her bed curtains and curled around one of her pillows, trying to ease the ache in her stomach.  The thought of food was intolerable.  

The taste of blood in her mouth strangely soothed her nausea, and Darcy found herself sucking her lip to keep it flowing.  She couldn’t stop thinking about what she had done.  The way his mouth had tasted like mint leaves, the warmth of his hands against her face...

Darcy remembered what it had been like, when Odin had kissed her.  She’d always wanted to drink something afterwards, as if that would make it something that hadn’t happened.  Maybe she should send a bottle of brandy to his room, as an apology.  Or would that be an insult?   _How does one apologize for such a thing_ , Darcy wondered.

He had seemed to want it-- the kissing-- but then, how could he do anything else?  She was the roof over his head, and the heads of his family.  He would do what Darcy had done.  Smile, while screaming inside.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing Darcy was aware of was the sound of the children arguing in the hallway, and then the door to her bedroom banging open.

“Natasha!”  Bucky said sharply, and Darcy squeezed her eyes shut.  “Let Darcy rest, she’s not well.”

“What did you do?”  The little girl demanded, and there was a scrambling noise, as if she were being picked up against her will.  “You’re making the face you make when you did something.”

“I--”  Bucky started, and Darcy’s heart beat so hard it pulsed in her temple.  “Clint, you too.  There’s no reason for anyone to be in here.”

“You  _are_ making that face.”  Clint accused, and there was more scuffling.  When the door slammed again, Darcy let out a long breath.  

“Darcy... are you awake?” Bucky’s voice was hesitant and close-- on the wrong side of the door.

She covered her face with her hands.  “Yes.”

“I’m sorry about the children.  I tried…”  On the other side of her bed curtains she heard him sigh.  “Well.  Would you like anything?  Something to eat?”

Darcy licked at her lip and was disappointed to find the wound had closed while she slept.  “I-- no.  I don’t need anything.”

Darcy listened to his footsteps coming closer, muffled by her carpet, and didn’t know what she wanted him to do-- go, or stay.

“I’m sorry.”  He said, and her bed curtains fluttered, as if he’d run a hand across them.  “I’ve upset you with my behavior.  It seemed as if… it wasn’t my intention, to force any attentions on you that you weren’t receptive to.  Please forgive me.”

Darcy sat up so quickly she was nearly dizzy for it.  “There is nothing to forgive.  The fault was mine.”  She said, swallowing to wet her throat.  “I made you feel it was necessary to…I would never.  I truly want the children here.  All of you.  You don’t have to do-- that.”

“Darcy…”  He said, and now her bed curtains were being pulled open.  “Is that what you think? That I felt obligated to…?”

Darcy focused on a loose thread on the sleeve of her nightgown so she didn’t have to look at him.  “I told you, I understand your situation.  There’s no need for you to pretend.”

“I don’t know that you do.”  He said quietly, and turned towards the door.  “Wait.  Just a moment, please.”

When he cracked it open Darcy could hears the children whispering on the other side, and then footsteps, though she couldn’t make out the words.  It was a matter of half a minute’s work before Steve walked in, his reassuring smile like a slap to Darcy.  He had always looked at her in a way that way hard to describe-- as if he thought she was something special, someone good.  She looked down to cover her face with her hair, unable to bear it right now.

When he sat down on the bed and took her hand, Darcy thought she would start crying.  He smelled like paint and mint, and she remembered kissing Bucky, the flavor of his mouth.  Perhaps Steve’s would taste the same.

 _My god, what is wrong with me?_   Darcy thought, horrified at herself and the thoughts beneath that one.

Bucky pushed her bed curtains back further so he could sit as well, and Darcy felt her breathing speed up.  It was very frightening to have them both in her room right now, although it was difficult to say why this was so.

“Steve, please tell Darcy it’s alright.”  Bucky said, and she could feel the weight of his stare like something physical.

“It’s alright,” Steve said immediately, and squeezed her hand.  “If you want to kiss him,” He paused, his face turning pink, “Or anything.  I don’t mind.”

Darcy sucked in a breath, her eyes wide as her gaze darted between them.  There was no polite way to have this conversation-- not that Darcy had ever had a deep belief in courtesy, but sometimes there was a sense of safety in it.  There were rules.

“But you’re together.”  She said bluntly, torn between the fear that she was about to alienate both of them, and a sense of relief at finally being able to speak honestly.  “It’s romantic-- your relationship.”

“Yes.”  Steve agreed, and he didn’t seem uncomfortable at saying it.  Darcy felt some of her anxiety lessen.  “But I don’t mind.  A beautiful woman like you… who wouldn’t want--” He blushed and stopped talking.

Darcy bit her lip unconsciously and winced when her teeth found the same place she’d injured earlier.

“Darcy,”  Bucky said, and she realized that his eyes had never left her face, that he’d seen her hurt herself again, “You fancy Steve as well.  Don’t you.”

Darcy opened her mouth to answer and then looked down at the hand Steve was still holding.   “Yes,”  She admitted quietly, pulling her hand back into her lap with a sense of loss. “I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  Please, don’t imagine I expect anything.  This-- you’re safe here, I swear it.  Today was just a lapse.  I’ll do better, from now on.”  She thought her voice sounded normal, but when Bucky touched her cheek she found her face was wet.

Darcy was shocked to see he was smiling.  “Jesus, you’re as much of a noble idiot as Steve was.”  There was amusement in his voice.  “The first time he kissed me he apologized for ten minutes about ‘inflicting his unnatural desires on me’ before I could make him stop talking nonsense.”

“It was not that long.”  Steve protested half-heartedly.  He was blinking too much, as if he were trying to clear his vision.

“It was that long,”  Bucky whispered conspiratorially, rubbing his thumb against her cheek to wipe the rest of her tears away,  “I don’t remember how many fights I got into, helping this kid out, and still--”

“You know, I seem to recall an incident,  _only a few days ago_ ,”  Steve interrupted, giving Bucky a quelling look that reminded Darcy of the way her parents used to argue.

Bucky held his hands up, looking faintly embarrassed.  “Yes.  You have made your point, please stop.”

“It was not ten minutes,”  Steve told her seriously, and Darcy covered her mouth to hide a smile at their bickering.  Seeing her reaction Bucky grinned and shoved Steve with his shoulder.  When he raised his eyebrows and tilted his head at her, Darcy felt her cheeks heat.  She saw Steve glance at her mouth and her heart jumped painfully.

He leaned forward slowly, giving her time to pull back.  There was every indication that he was going to kiss her, she knew that was what he was doing, but the first brush of his lips against hers still sent a shockwave through her.  She didn’t dare move or breathe, thoughts crowding her head until nothing made sense anymore.

The only thing she could hold on to when he drew back was that she had been right-- their mouths had tasted exactly the same.


	23. Safe

When Steve walked into Erskine’s that evening and found Angie there alone, he knew he had to take advantage of the opportunity.

“Angie, could I-- do you have a moment to talk?”  Steve asked, looking around for another chair.

“Sure.”  Angie shrugged, tucking her feet closer to her body so there was room on the couch for him,  “Peg’s getting us something to eat, I got time.”

She was wearing one of her kimono robes again, and instead of feeling flustered at her casual near-nudity Steve found it put him a little at ease.

Still, he found himself looking at his hands awkwardly as he spoke.  “I was hoping to get some advice from you.  About women.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place, but I gotta ask-- I mean, since when?  You and that Bucky seemed good together, when he came by.”  She nudged him with her foot.  “And he’s pretty good looking.”

“No, we’re-- that part of it isn’t-- that is, we both--”  Steve rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of the best way to explain the situation, while Angie’s eyebrows rose higher, her mouth open and fascinated. 

“I’m impressed.”  She said, and shook her head.  “She seemed so ladylike. The dresses up to her neck, the white gloves...   Who’d have thought she had  _that_ in her?  Goes to show, I suppose.  Good for her.”

When she saw Steve stiffen, she shoved him with her foot again impatiently.  “Stop that.  Now, what did you want to ask?”

Steve was starting to regret broaching the subject, not certain if it was even possible to speak about it without some insult.  “I haven’t ever courted a woman.  And I know that you have experience in that.”

Angie snorted, but didn’t seem offended.  “Yeah, I’ve ‘courted’ a few women.  A few men, too.”  She drummed her fingers on the wood at the base of her armrest, looking thoughtful.  “It’s different.  Normally I’d tell a guy that he has to be gentle with women, but you don’t strike me as the rough sort.”

Her eyes looked up and to the right, like she was accessing a memory.  “Women are much more emotional, that’s the main difference.  It needs to feel safe.  Not to say we can’t enjoy a little bit of danger, getting caught or the like-- but I mean, she has to feel safe with  _you_.  Otherwise it’s hard to enjoy ourselves.”

She glanced over at Steve, raising an eyebrow.  “Is that the sort of advice you were looking for, or something a bit more… mechanical?”

Steve’s blush was immediate and severe, and Angie laughed.

“You’re the sweetest.”  She informed him, opening her robe.  “Okay.  Pay attention, because I’m only going to show you this once.”

Steve hurriedly turned his attention to the floor.  “No, truly, that’s not necessary--”

“It is.”  Angie interrupted, reaching over to grab his chin to force him to look at her.  “I can already tell that none of you (and I’m including the lady when I say that) have any idea what you’re doing when it comes to pleasing a woman.  This is a public service.”

 

After Angie’s traumatically thorough anatomy lesson Steve tried to paint, but he found he was too distracted to get any work done.

It wasn’t what she’d shown him, really.  It was what she’d said.

When he’d kissed Darcy, he thought that she had been afraid.  Perhaps not of  _him_ , but from the way she’d squeezed his hand…

He’d been afraid, the first time he’d kissed Bucky, but it had faded fast.  They’d had years to build to that, to know everything about each other.  It didn’t feel like it, but Darcy was nearly a stranger.  There was no well of old trust for her to fall back on.

That came from _knowing_  someone, and Steve didn’t know if he wanted her to know him.  It was like the painting-- what was the value of that body on the bed?

The streets were busy with workmen and women, footsore on their way home.  There was an unreality to Steve’s life as he looked at them.  A legion of able, healthy people, killing themselves just to keep body and soul together-- and here he was.  He’d done nothing of use, all day, and yet he was well dressed and well fed.  

It didn’t seem fair.

Walking up the steps to the house, Steve felt like he was seeing it for the first time all over again.  How clean and beautiful everything was.

He followed their voices to one of the sitting rooms.   Natasha was making some demand while Bucky teased her, and Darcy murmured a reply.  Clint was silent as usual, but when Steve paused in the doorway he saw him watching the girls, smiling.  He was more relaxed here than Steve could ever remember him.

_They_  deserved this, of that he had no doubt.  Maybe it was something that everyone deserved-- to be safe, and warm, and well.  

It seemed a hard thing to come by, for something everyone should have.

He thought of what Bucky had said going out was like for Darcy, and wondered if she’d given them something she didn’t have herself.  If  _she_ ever got to feel safe.

 

“Do you think women are afraid of men?”  Steve asked, staring at the ceiling in bed that night.

Bucky snorted.  “If they have any sense.” He muttered, half awake.

Steve sat up to see his face better in the darkness. “You think they  _should_ be?”

“Of course I do.”  Bucky said, draping his arm across his eyes to block out the firelight.  “Go to sleep.”

There were a few moments of silence punctuated by cracks from a log burning in the fire, and Bucky had almost succeeded in falling back asleep when Steve spoke again.  “Do I scare women?”  He asked, and Bucky groaned at the sound of his voice.

“We’re talking about this now, aren’t we.  Why are we doing that?”  He asked rhetorically, uncovering his eyes with a sigh.  “You don’t scare women.  And Darcy isn’t scared of you.”

“But--”  Steve started to argue, and Bucky shoved a hand at his face like he was forcing the words back into his mouth.

“ _You_ don’t scare women.”  He repeated pointedly, and pulled the blankets over his head to end the conversation.  He remembered what Darcy had said in the carriage the first day they’d taken Natasha to ballet school.  _This world has teeth, and it can take a bite out of you whenever it wants to._   _I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that._

Somehow Steve had managed not to learn that, although for the life of him Bucky couldn’t figure out how.  Even little Natasha knew, but... not Steve.  He still had so much faith in other people, as if he hadn’t grown up in the same place as Bucky and seen the same things.  

He thanked god every day that Steve hadn’t been able to enlist with him-- had been forced to stay in London until they sent Bucky home with a bullet in his shoulder and a new respect for the depths humanity could sink to.

“I want her to feel safe.”  Steve said, his words muffled.  Bucky marveled again at the sound of his breathing, clear and deep.

There was work out there, for men like him-- who knew how to fire a gun.  Who knew how to hurt someone.  If he’d had to go through another winter watching Steve die, Bucky knew he would have taken those jobs.

_I would have done anything,_ he thought, rolling close to Steve to bury his face in his hair,  _and I still couldn’t have given you what we have here._

“She is safe.”  Bucky murmured, and it was a promise.


	24. What Loki Knows

Whatever had been keeping Loki occupied in his rooms wasn’t keeping him there anymore.  And now he’s everywhere.

He’s at the breakfast table complaining about his tea.  He’s lounging on one of the sofas in the living room with a newspaper, watching Darcy get the kids ready.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so intolerable to Bucky if he didn’t have that smirk on his face.  Loki’d made insinuations from the beginning, but now there was something to the way he watched them, as if he knew.

 _There’s nothing to know,_ Bucky thought.  There was no way that Loki could know anything.  

He gave up trying to convince himself of that as soon as he saw Steve’s smile.  Darcy had knelt to fix Clint’s tie, the purple silk dark around her fingers while Steve sat at the table, finishing the last of his breakfast.  He was breaking apart a danish with his fork and looking at her, with such a soft expression on his face.  He couldn’t have been more telling if he’d reached over stroked her cheek.  

Loki didn’t have to do anything but look.

He lifted a hand to them from the sofa as they left, giving Bucky a knowing smile, but-- surely he couldn’t be as obvious.  He wasn’t gazing at Darcy adoringly.  He didn’t even touch her when they were at home.

As much as he’d enjoyed kissing her, he’d liked seeing Steve kiss her more.  Watching them had been… Bucky hadn’t known how he would feel about it until he saw it.  

If it had come down to a choice, he would have wanted Darcy to choose him.  Steve had always admired women so much-- Bucky knew there was something missing for him, even if he’d never have admitted it.  The double dates were about more than just passing-- he’d wanted to find someone for Steve.  

Maybe she would never have to know about them.  They could have gone back to the way they were before.  He’d loved Steve before they’d been physical-- he could love him without it, if that’s what he needed.

Darcy had been a surprise.  It had never occurred to him it was an option to have it all until he’d seen the way Darcy’d looked at Steve before she’d bitten her lip.  

He knew what it felt like to want someone and think that it was wrong.  

As soon as they dropped Clint off, he turned to Darcy and touched her chin-- lightly, letting her pull back if she wanted to.  He expected her to blush, to have to read her face.  

He didn’t expect her to lean forward and kiss him without any hesitation.  There was chocolate from breakfast on her tongue, and he remembered what Steve had said in bed that night about the way Darcy smelled in the morning.  Like chocolate and lilacs.

He pressed his hand to her chest so he could feel her heartbeat through the high lace neck of her dress.  It must be strangling.

He hated to see her in black, even though he’d rarely seen her in anything else.  She wasn’t mourning him, she hadn’t love him, and yet Odin still had his hands on her.  It made him sick to think of Darcy marrying him-- eighteen years old, with both her parents dead.

The men he’d known in the neighborhood who took advantage of girls like that weren’t Archdukes.  They were businessmen, and bosses.  But they were all the same.  

 _How can she kiss me like this,_ Bucky wondered, as Darcy wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer, her heart racing under his palm,  _after what he must have done to her?_ Steve was so worried about Darcy being afraid of them, but even though she should have been... she wasn’t.   She should have flinched from his touch instead of leaning into it.  

The first time he had put his hands on her, Bucky remembered how it had startled Darcy.  He thought that had more to do with unfamiliarity than fear.  

When she hesitated, just for a moment, before she ran her fingers through his hair… she wasn’t afraid.  It was just new.

When her thumb stroked the back of his neck a shiver ran through his body, and she pulled back.

“I’m sorry,”  She said, and there it was-- the reaction he’d expected when he’d put his hand on her face.  The blush, the look away.  “That-- Am I being too forward?”

Bucky grinned and kissed her quickly.  “No.”  He told her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  “That was not too forward.  There is no too forward.”

Darcy glanced down.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”  She said, and bit her lip-- lightly, not the way she had the last time they’d kissed.  It didn’t feel like she was punishing herself this time.

Bucky leaned forward to take her bottom lip between his teeth.  Darcy gasped against his mouth-- and then they were kissing again, with too much vehemence.  In the back of his mind Bucky knew they shouldn’t be doing this here, now, with Loki back at the house waiting.  He’d see this on them, in their wide pupils and flushed cheeks.

But, god, it was intoxicating to hear the little sounds she was making, her heart racing against his hand.  It should have been impossible for her to want him this way after everything that must have happened to her.  For her to want  _them_.  He wanted to watch her kiss Steve like this, he wanted to touch her without fabric in the way, he wanted...

He was hungry for what this could be, so much so that he was afraid of scaring her.  But when they pulled up to the house and broke apart, it wasn’t fear he saw on her face.

 

Bucky was folding one of Steve’s shirts into a drawer when Loki walked into their bedroom and flopped down on the bed, as if it were his room and he had a right to be relaxed.

“I suppose I should be asking you what your intentions are towards my little mother.”  Loki’s legs sprawled open, his shoes leaving smudges on the comforter.  “But they’re fairly obvious.  Does she know about you and the skinny little artist boy?”

Bucky turned his back to close the dresser drawer without responding, and Loki laughed at him.

“She  _does._   Well.”  He knocked his knee against the bedpost thoughtfully.  “That’s interesting.  Tell me, have you taken her to bed yet, the two of you?”

Bucky felt his face twitch involuntarily, looking down at the comb lying at an angle on the bureau, a few strands of blond hair still caught in its tines.  There was no way for Loki to have seen it, but he seemed to sense it.  The sound of his snicker grated. “I don’t know what you’re imagining, but I assure you--”

“Spare me.”  Loki said, rolling his eyes.  “I’ve known Darcy for years, she never was a particularly shy girl.”

“So that’s what happened with your father?”  Bucky spat out, regretting the loss of temper even as he said it.  He shouldn’t give the man anything, but there was something about these insinuations in particular that set his teeth on edge.  “She wasn’t  _shy_ enough?”

The smirk fell off of his face like a mask, just for a moment.  What was underneath it was something Bucky hadn’t expected.  

“No.”  Loki said, tucking his hands behind his head in an imitation of his previous indolence.  “No, I don’t believe it was possible to be too shy for my father.”

 _What happened with that man,_ he thought, looking at the loose way Loki held himself.  Even his body language was a lie-- he was a good actor.  Better than Bucky had ever been.  “What did he do to her?”

“No, that’s not the right question,”  Loki admonished, his lips pouting into an exaggerated moue. “The right question is, what did I do about it?”

Bucky thought of the haunted look he’d seen, before Loki closed off again.   _Nothing he didn’t deserve, I imagine._


	25. Led On

Steve was putting the final details into the background of his painting when Darcy walked into his studio.

It was hard to describe how he knew it was her even before he turned around-- Peggy and Angie liked to wander into his studio from time to time, often completely unnoticed until their shadows blocked his light.  But it was like the air was different around Darcy, something close to the way it felt before a storm.

“Hello.”  She said, smiling at him as she walked over to examine the painting.  “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve stopped by.”

“No, of course not,”  Steve said, expecting Bucky or the kids to follow, but no one did.  

Darcy followed his glance and quirked her lips.  “I snuck out.”  She confessed.  “Loki’s been out and about today, and he and Bucky…”

“I understand.”  Steve assured her, only too able to imagine the snide comments that must be making the rounds between them.  “I can’t promise to be very entertaining, but it should certainly be quieter here.”

“I like watching you work.”  Darcy promised, settling herself onto the couch.

 _You are going to be disappointed, then,_ Steve thought, dabbing more black into Bucky’s shadow,  _because I don’t think I can concentrate anymore._   

He’d been alone with her before, he was certain of it, but it felt different now that she’d let him kiss her.

His entire memory of it was a haze of unreality.  She wanted him.  She wanted  _them._ It was completely impossible.  

He kept imagining doing it again, just to make sure she meant it, but at the same time, he couldn’t get the things Angie had said out of his mind.  Darcy seemed to be very comfortable with them-- at least Bucky had thought so, and he had always been better at that sort of thing than Steve was.  

But Bucky had also said that he thought women should be afraid of men, and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

He was quietly relieved when Peggy brought them some tea and he could stop pretending he was getting anything done.

“This is lovely, thank you.”  Darcy said, taking a sip of the strong oolong tea that Angie prefered.

“You’re welcome.”  Peggy said, giving Steve a significant look.  “Anything I can do to help.”

Darcy looked puzzled by the comment until Peggy walked out of the room and closed the door firmly behind her.  Then she looked down at her lap.  “You told her?”

“No!”  Steve denied, spilling a little tea out onto his saucer in his vehemence.  “Of course not, I would never-- They do know about Bucky.  Peggy and Angie are… Well, they understand.”

“They-- Oh.”  Darcy said, and blushed a little.  “I see.  I suppose I didn’t realize that women often…”

Steve shrugged, mopping up his spilled tea with a rag.  “Not any more often than men do, I imagine.  It’s not something most people will admit.”

“Of course not.”  Darcy agreed, and then looked horrified.  “Not that there’s anything wrong with-- that’s not what I intended, please forgive me.”

Steve smiled at her consternation.  “I understood your meaning.  It’s not something it’s safe to be open about with many people.  When Bucky told me that you knew, and you didn’t care, it was quite the relief.”

“I can only imagine.”  Darcy busied herself adding milk to her cup, even though she usually took her tea black.  “Some crazy woman practically abducts your children, and then you… it must have been terrifying.”

“The last thing I would call what you did for us is ‘terrifying’.”  Steve said seriously, remembering what it had been like to wake up in her house for the first time.  How he'd thought he must have died and gone to heaven.  “I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”

“No,”  Darcy set her teacup down on the tray Peggy had brought, as if she had suddenly lost all interest in it.  “There’s nothing any of you owe me.  I believe I was very lonely… more than I knew.  It’s been wonderful to have all of you with me.  I hope I haven’t… I’ve been a bit high handed at times, I know, because I thought you might hesitate to ask for things you needed.  But please tell me, if you ever feel that I’m forcing something on you that you don’t want.”

There was something in her expression that told him she was thinking of more than art supplies.  “Darcy,” He said, cautious to make assumptions,  “There hasn’t been anything you’ve done yet, for any of us, that hasn’t been welcome.”

“Alright.”  She said, closed her eyes as if she were steeling herself for something.  “Then I was wondering if you’d like to-- that is, I--” Darcy took a deep breath, visibly flustered.  “Would you kiss me.”  She finally managed, and his heart jolted painfully.

He reached over to take her hand, and pressed his lips cautiously to hers.  Even though she’d asked him, it was still unbelievable, a voice in his head chanting  _This can’t be real_  over and over again as he felt her bare fingers tighten around his.  Their kisses were shallow, barely more than than a brush, but his body thrummed with it.

By the time he dared to stop ten minutes must have passed, but it felt so much longer.  He and Bucky had first gotten together so long ago that Steve had forgotten how terrifying it was, in the beginning.  Not the kind of terror you felt when you were in danger-- desire was its own kind of frightening-- but terrifying all the same.  

When he pulled back, Darcy was breathing so fast he thought she was in danger of fainting.  “I’m not letting you breathe.”  He said, touching her face and finding it hot.  “I’m sorry.”

“No, I--”  Darcy blushed, either from her breathlessness or what she was about to say.  “Don’t stop.”

 _Please don’t say things like that to me,_ Steve thought, everything he wanted welling up in his mind like a flood.  When she bit her bottom lip it was more than he could stand.

When he tugged at her hands she looked confused, then her pupils widened when she realized his intentions.  That voice in his head was whispering  _this is a bad idea_ and  _what are you doing_  as he pulled her on top of him.  It went abruptly, utterly silent when instead of sitting with her legs demurely together, she straddled his lap.  There were a lot of layers to a woman’s clothing, from the outside, but from underneath-- she was essentially down to her shift.

 _She was a married woman,_ he thought, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t about to scandalize her when she felt the effect she was having on him,  _she’s been with a man._   

But that man had been Odin.  Her experiences couldn’t have been good.

But she kissed him, her mouth open and warm, and Steve stopped thinking.  His mind became a series of sensations-- the sound of her skirts rustling, the short gasps of her breath against his skin, her hands on his face…

He felt the moment she became aware of his condition, her whole body suddenly tense.  “I’m sorry,”  She said, still out of breath, “I don’t want to-- I can’t--”

“Darcy, it’s alright.”  Steve said, taking her hand automatically.  To his relief it seemed to be a comfort, because she smiled hesitantly.  “I’m not expecting anything like that.”  He promised.  “Please don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.”  She lied, and he could see how much she wanted to believe it, even as she gripped his hand far too tightly.  “I don’t mean to lead you on, I just…”

Steve thought that if Odin hadn’t been dead, he would have killed him.

“It’s far too soon for anything more than kissing.”  He said, meeting her eyes.  “And even when it’s not-- You can still say stop, if anything is too much.  Whenever you need to.  And no one will feel ‘led on’, or be angry.”

Darcy blinked, then looked away.  “Do you believe me?”  Steve pressed, not able to read her face.

“Yes,”  She whispered, and her eyes spilled over,  “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so upset right now.”

Steve put his arms around her and let her cry into his shoulder, trying to concentrate on what would be comforting to her instead of his own anger.

 

Darcy looked at the wet spot on Steve’s shirt, feeling equal parts relieved and foolish.   _What did you imagine was going to happen when you crawled in his lap?_ She admonished herself, closing her eyes to enjoy the way he was rubbing her back.  She couldn’t think of any man who would have behaved this way.

Well, that wasn’t accurate-- she thought Bucky might have.  

Darcy glanced at darkened window with a sinking feeling.

“I’m afraid it’s very late.”  She said, sitting up with reluctance.  “I’m sure they must be wondering where we are… we’ve missed dinner…”

“Are you certain you’re ready to go home?”  Steve asked, and traced a thumb over her puffy eyes.  “You still seem a little upset.”

“I’m alright.”  Darcy promised, reaching up to touch her face self consciously.  “We really should go.”

“I’ll get the carriage.”  He said, and it took her a moment to remember that she was still sitting on him.

Darcy was smoothing out the creases in her skirt with a faint sense of embarrassment when Peggy walked into the room.

“I’ll be quick, I just want to retrieve my-- oh my god.”  She froze in the doorway to stare at Darcy’s face.  “What happened?”

“I’m fine.”  Darcy assured her, feeling a blush creep down her neck.  “Quite alright, honestly.”

Peggy looked over Darcy’s rumbled clothes, and came to sit down on the sofa beside her.  “You’ve obviously been crying.”

“Yes,”  She admitted, meeting Peggy’s eyes inspite of her discomfort.  “But I assure you, Steve wasn’t at fault.  He’s been nothing but sweet.”

Peggy smiled.  “That’s a relief.  I rather like him, it would have been a shame to find out something like that about him.  What upset you, then?”

“He’s a very good man.”  Darcy gestured down at her black dress.  “My late husband was… less so.”

“Ah.”  Peggy said, as if that explained everything.  She reached over to squeeze Darcy’s hand in a gesture that was reminiscent of Steve.  “Well.  At least you’re shut of him now.”

“Yes.”  Darcy realized she’d never admitted that to anyone-- that she was glad he was dead.  It was the sort of thing that made one sound awful, and cold.  

But Peggy just patted her hand, and didn’t seem to mind.


	26. Dangerous

Bucky knows better than to run for the front door when he hears it open, that it would only make his lie so much more obvious.  The kids had gone to bed in their own room with extremely ill grace, but Loki was still up and sitting on a sofa, thumbing through a novel he obviously couldn’t care less about.  Waiting for Darcy, even if he wouldn’t say it.

She’d winked at him when she slipped out earlier in the afternoon, and Bucky had made assumptions.

He was already fantasizing about what it would be like when Steve got home, and he could take him to bed.  Steve’s voice, breathless from Bucky’s hands on his body, telling him all about what it had been like for him to really get to kiss her.

As it got dark, his imagination began to go in a different direction, and he pictured everything that could have gone wrong.  The carriage overturned in some alley, both of them lying limp on the cobblestones with their throats cut because someone had looked at the gold inlays on Odin’s family crest and wanted the money it promised.  Every moment he delayed summoning the police was a moment they could be in danger, or dead-- but if he summoned the police and they were fine, holed up in Steve’s studio… There would be a scandal.

Bucky felt Loki’s eyes on him, waiting for him to react to the sound of their feet in the hallway.

His relief when Steve walked into the room smiling apologetically was physical.  His clothes look a little rumpled, but that wasn't usual after a day at the studio, and there was nothing about the way he was holding himself that gave Bucky any cause for concern.  

“Good evening.”  Loki said, closing his book.  “How interesting that you returned at the exact same moment as my little mother.”

“Ah,”  Steve hedged, glancing at Bucky to gauge how honest he should be,  “Well, she stopped by my studio and gave me a ride home.  So.”

It never failed to surprise him how terrible Steve was at lying, considering they’d been doing it most of their lives.  It was as if some part of him couldn’t help but balk from it, his whole body rejecting the words so that they always came out stilted.

“Her  _dinner engagement_  must have run quite long.”  Bucky said leadingly, and Steve’s face telegraphed a moment of relief.

“Yes, I suppose so.”  He agreed, eyes darting towards the door as if he wished he could leave.  “She was feeling poorly, actually.  I’d like to go see that she’s alright.”

“I’m sure you’ve _seen to her_  quite enough today.”  Loki said, getting to his feet.  “I’ll go.”

Bucky opened his mouth to protest that Darcy would be preparing for bed, but the same arguments could be made against Steve.

When he left the room Bucky barely gave him a head start before he followed, Steve trailing after uncertainly.  

“--not fair, and you know it.”  He heard Darcy’s voice before they were halfway up the stairs.  Loki’s reply was inaudible.

“What is it you imagine I should be doing with myself, Loki?”  She countered, lowering the volume of her voice.  “I’m being sincere.  I can’t do it, I can’t keep going to parties and talking to these people who tell me how wonderful my late husband was.  Who stare at my breasts and tell me what a lucky last week he must have had.  Do you know anyone who won’t do that, who’re in ‘our’ class?  Because I don’t.”

“So your solution is to ruin yourself with people you dragged up from some wretched hovel?”  Even pressing his face to the wall, Loki’s voice was soft enough that Bucky had to strain to hear it.  “You’ve always had an interest in children-- fine.  Dispense with the men.”

After a long pause, Darcy finally answered.  “I cannot believe that you, of all people, would say something like that to me.  No.  Even if I had no attachment to them myself, how could I just take their children?  It’s unfathomable.”

“I would have advised you to pay them off, but it’s far too late for that now.  They’ve sented blood in the water.  I hope you’ve thought of what you’re going to do when they decide they want more than you’re giving them.”  Loki’s tone was scornful and dismissive, but Bucky couldn’t help but agree.  It had been foolish of her to invite them to stay, at least from the point of view of someone who didn’t know what sort of men they were.

“They’re not like that.  I’m certain… I’ve been in vulnerable positions with them already, Loki.  Neither of them has attempted to take advantage.”  

Bucky’s mind flashed back to kissing her, and he glanced at Steve to find him blushing.

“You are an extremely poor liar.”  Loki’s voice hovered between disgust and amusement.  “Almost worse than Rogers.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are alluding to.”  Bucky could almost see her flutter her eyelashes sarcastically.  “But there is nothing for you to worry about with them.  I’m sure of that.”

“And if you’re wrong?”  There was a soft shushing noise of his shoes against the carpet, and Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm to drag him back towards their room.

Darcy’s voice followed them.  “Well, then, I’ve always wondered what Australia looks like.”

 

Steve waited until they were alone in the darkness to talk.  It was wrong to spill something like that in a bright room.

He buried his face into Bucky’s neck, and told him how sweet it had been to kiss her.  What it had felt like to hold her while she cried.

Bucky listened and ran his hands over Steve’s back without speaking, and Steve wondered if he was pressing down the same anger he’d felt.

They were lying together like that when a light tap on the door interrupted the silence.  Bucky slid from the bed and pulled the blankets over Steve’s head-- the children wouldn’t have knocked, and anyone else would take one look at their positions and  _know_.

He closed his eyes and tried to make his breath come softly, listening to feet on the floor, the creak of the door opening.

When he heard the door close with a snap, Steve sat up and felt his heart start to pound so suddenly he was almost dizzy.  

Darcy was standing inside the room with her back to the door, looking exactly as she had the first time he'd met her, in that pale blue robe.  Bucky’s hands were fastened around her arms just above her elbows, as if he'd dragged her inside.

“What are you doing here?”  He hissed, his voice as close to a shout as a whisper could be.  “If anyone had seen you--”

“I’m often up late.”  Darcy protested, but didn’t pull out of his hold.  “And you can check before I leave.”

Bucky glanced down at his hands, then at her face.  “If you need to talk, we must find a better hour.  This is dangerous.”

“I don’t need to talk.”  Darcy said, and stood on her toes to kiss him.


	27. Don't Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, okay, I'm kind of scared of this scene to be honest. I tried really hard! It was uncomfortable for me! I did my best!

Bucky’s hands tightened on her arms, and for a moment Darcy thought he was going to push her away.

“I’m not ready to do everything.”  Darcy said, and tried not to blush or stammer, though her pulse was jumping faster with every breath.  “But I would like to… I trust you.  I thought perhaps--”

Bucky traced a hand down the side of her face, and Darcy stilled her tongue.  She was embarrassed to feel the way she was trembling.

He kissed her lightly and tugged her towards the bed, Steve sliding to the far side of the mattress to give her far too much room.

The sheets were still warm when she slid between them, the faint smell of lemongrass coming from their bedding as if they’d gotten into bed with wet hair and the scent of their hair products had seeped into the pillow behind her head.

Bucky didn’t climb in beside her but crawled on top of the coverlet between her and Steve, staring at her with his eyes black in the scant light.  She had no idea what happened next, what this  _was._ She stared back, not knowing how dark her own eyes were, wide with uncertainty.

He turned and kissed Steve full on the mouth, the same kind of kiss he’d given her in the carriage with his hands on his face.  Steve returned it easily, his fingers tangling in the front of Bucky’s nightgown to keep him there.

She’d known they were together-- that this was their bed.  The way they looked at each other, the casual way they touched… there were so many little tells that said they were in love with each other, but it was another thing to  _see_  it.  The way Bucky’s hand lingered on Steve’s face and the slow pulse of their mouths on each other was so unbearably intimate.  Not something Darcy should be invading.  Not something she could look away from.

Bucky pulled back, his thumb still stroking Steve’s cheek.  Steve opened his eyes, and Darcy noticed how long and dark his lashes were for someone with blond hair, how they framed his eyes and made them look bright.  Bucky turned to look at her, and then leaned forward slowly, giving her time to pull back.  She knew he was going to kiss her, but she still gasped at the first brush of his lips.  She didn’t dare move as he opened her mouth and his tongue moved against hers, didn’t dare breathe.  Without thinking, she did what had become her habit when she was frightened-- she reached for Steve’s hand.

Bucky pulled back, his eyes darting over her face as he tried to read her.  He glanced down to where she clutched Steve’s hand and smiled, his eyes sparkling.  “I see.  I’m going about this all wrong.”

Before she even understood what he meant Bucky had ducked under their joined hands and rolled his body to the other side of the bed, so that she was in between them.

“Are you scared?”  Steve asked, concerned at the strength of Darcy’s grip on his hand.  He put a hand on her cheek.  Darcy shook her head mutely, unable to articulate what she was feeling, and his eyes strayed to her mouth.   He moved very slowly too, letting her stop him if she wanted to, but he didn’t kiss her.  He was so close, he could have whenever he wanted to, but he just breathed with his lips centimeters away.  His nose bumped against her cheek, and he nuzzled her affectionately.  

His breath against her neck sent a shiver down her body as, very softly, Steve kissed her neck.  There was no tongue, no teeth, just the brush of his lips against the pulse that pounded in her throat.  He sighed, and his breath there, in her ear, wrung a sound from her.  A small, high pitched noise that would have had her flushed in shame if at that moment Steve hadn’t taken her earlobe into his mouth.

Darcy moaned involuntarily.  To her right she heard Bucky swear, and then he was kissing her too.  While Steve’s mouth was slow and gentle, all soft lips and warm tongue, Bucky used his teeth.  He didn’t  _bite_  her, exactly, but his mouth was open against her neck and she felt the occasional sharp press of them on her skin.  She was still clutching Steve’s hand, still breathing fast, self conscious and scared and something else.

“Just say stop.”  Bucky murmured, his face pressed against her neck, and Darcy realized that he had his hand on the neck of her nightgown.  “Just say stop, anytime, and we will.”

Darcy drew in a deep breath and faced the feeling that was under her uncertainty, her fear.  “I.. no.  Don’t stop.”  She said, feeling her cheeks heat.  It was a little humiliating to her, how much she wanted this, wanted them.  

Steve took a deep breath, looking as flushed as she felt, then leaned into her.  When he kissed her this time everything felt more intense.  She could feel the light scrape of his stubble on her face, smell his aftershave and the lemongrass of his hair.  

“Tell us,”  Steve murmured, and kissed her collarbone.  “If anything is too much, if you don’t like it.”  Kissing the line of her shoulder, “If you want to stop.  It’s alright, whenever you do.”  Pulling with Bucky at the neck of her nightgown down, their hands warm.

Her senses were pouring in so much information, focusing on little things like the way the blankets have ridden up on one side, leaving just her left foot exposed to the cold air.  Or the far-off sound of the fire shifting, and the way her heart beats so hard and fast she can feel it against her sternum when they push her nightgown to her waist.  

Bucky paused, then pressed a kiss near her nipple.  “Too much?”  He was out of breath, his eyes black-- and if she had said the word, he would have stopped everything.

Darcy smiled at him, still feeling flushed and embarrassed, but there was something giddy and joyful underneath that that she wanted to explore.

“No,”  She said, sounding just as breathless,  “It’s not.  Please don’t stop.”

She let herself press into in the warmth of their hands and the rhythm of their mouths, still whispering that she didn't want them to stop.

And they didn't.


	28. The Morning After

Watching Darcy sleepily drink her morning chocolate was a form of torture.

He’d expected shyness from her, eyes cast down to her paper, but when Steve and Bucky walked into the dining room she met their eyes and smiled.  

That smile actually made him  _dizzy,_ though that could have been from sleeplessness.

He had been with Steve for so long that he couldn’t remember a time when their intimacy had been new.  There had been times when it was strange, navigating what it was to be together physically, but there had never been a time when he had thought that there was a way to lose him because of it.  With Darcy… it was as if she had closed her eyes and just fallen backwards, trusting them to catch her.

It had been impossible to sleep once she’d crept back to her room and left them alone in a bed that smelled like her.  They hadn’t fallen asleep so much as succumbed to exhaustion near when the sky started to lighten.

Bucky was trying not to think about the fact that she didn’t look well rested either, because it was all too easy to imagine what that could mean.

Women were different than men, he’d known that, but their pleasure was incompatible to a man’s.  It seemed bottomless.  He wondered if he’d ever have the opportunity to find that place with her, where she was spent-- it seemed like something that might require a whole night, not a few stolen hours with the prospect of discovery hovering at the edge of their awareness.  A night, and a place safe enough that she didn’t need to be afraid of the sounds she wanted to make.

 _Stop thinking about it,_ he reminded himself, and tried to focus on his breakfast over the smell of Darcy’s perfume.  

He didn’t notice Clint’s demeanor until he followed the boy into another room to help him fix his tie, and was kicked in the shin for his trouble.

Bucky just stared for a moment, trying to connect the child in front of him with the stinging pain in his leg. “Clint, what in the--”

“You leave her alone.”  He hissed, obviously conscious of his volume but wanting to yell.  “You’re going to foul this up for all of us.”

“I don’t know what you--”  Bucky began diplomatically, cutting off when Clint kicked him again.

“ _Leave her alone._ ”  He said, a little more loudly.  “You think she wants a baby?  And no one’s gonna say anything when she turns up in the way, they’ll just think ‘Must be like with Jesus’?”

“Clint, that’s not going to happen.” He reassured him, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder that Clint shrugged off with a scowl. 

“ ‘M not an idiot, though it’s clear  _you_ are.”  Disgust dripped from every word.  “We’re gonna have to use Bruce, and even that don’t always work, and then she’ll  _die_ , and we’re gonna be back in the neighborhood, and then Steve’ll die--”

“Jesus Christ child, no one is dying.”  Bucky said firmly, pulling him into an unwilling hug.  “You think I’m so careless with her life?  Or Steve’s?”

Clint hesitated, then buried his face into Bucky’s shoulder.  “This is not going to be like your mother.”  Bucky murmured, and Clint made a noise of surprise as if it weren’t obvious where this was all coming from.  “And you know that wasn’t Bruce’s work.  He would have told her she was too far along for it.”

“Couldn’t help that.”  Clint muttered, but seemed content to leave it alone and be held.

 

Steve had no idea how long he’d been staring at the wall when the girls walked into the studio, but judging from Angie’s snicker when he finally noticed them, it had been a while.  

“Good morning Angie, Peggy.”  He glanced at the tray in Peggy’s hands.  “Would you like us to have tea together?”

“If you’re not occupied.”  Peggy said, giving his blank canvas furtive look.

Steve smiled wryly.  “I believe I can make time.”

Settled on the couch with a warm cup in his hand, Steve felt like if he reclined he’d fall asleep.  

“So,”  Peggy pressed her lips together, “We have a… well, not a request, exactly.”

Angie rolled her eyes and Peggy’s hesitation.  “I need a job."  She said bluntly.  "I don’t know what your lady is like, but she’s gotta be better than the son of a bitch I’m working for right now.”

Steve raised his eyebrows.  “Ah… What sort of things can you do?”

“Besides take my clothes off?”  Angie asked, winking.  “I’m a fair hand with a needle… I can do most things.  I’m good, I promise, it’s just… well, you know.  I’m a talker.”  She shrugged self-effacingly.  “Tends to get me into a mess, sometimes.  I figure, Darcy’s already seen me at my most scandalous.”

Steve bit his lip thoughtfully.  “I know Darcy was looking for a lady’s maid.  I can’t promise anything, but I’ll make the suggestion.”

“Of course.”  Peggy agreed, giving him an apologetic smile.

“You could use a little of your influence though.”  Angie muttered, and Peggy closed her eyes in a prayer for patience.  “What?  We’re pretty broke right now, Peg.”

“I… haven’t sold a painting in a while.”  She admitted.  “I mean, to anyone other than  _Howard_.  I suppose if I was content to paint only orgies of naked women for the rest of my life I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“I promise to ask.”  Steve gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.  “At the very least, I’m sure she’d be willing to try Angie out.”

Angie’s smile was blinding.  “Oh, if I can get a foot in the door I am  _in._ I grow on you.”

“She does.”  Peggy agreed, her glance affectionate.

Steve tried to smile and yawned instead.

“Long night?”  Angie asked, raising her eyebrows suggestively.  Steve went instantly, hotly red, and turned his attention to the dregs of his tea.

“Angie, don’t tease.”  Peggy scolded, but there was more than a little amusement in her tone.  “Steve, if you want to have a bit of a lie down, I can wake you in a few hours.”

“I believe I might take you up on that.”  Steve make a face at his canvas.  “I’m afraid I can’t concentrate.”

“I’ll get you near luncheon.”  Peggy promised, taking Angie’s hand to lead her out the door when she displayed no intention of getting up, still waggling her eyebrows at Steve.

He was far from comfortable on the sofa, but he’d slept in worse conditions many times before.  His exhaustion should have taken over, but it was as bad at it had been last night in spite of the way the turpentine smell of the studio grounded him.  He just wanted to be at home, curled up in bed with Bucky.  It was too much to think of Darcy there as well-- they wouldn’t be allowed something like that.  But for a moment, he indulged himself in the thought of it; lying with his arms around her waist and his face in her hair, Bucky warm at his back the way he’d always been.  

He fell asleep imagining it, the fantasy morphing into a series of dreams that were incredibly embarrassing to be woken from.


	29. The Science Symposium

The Stark Science Symposium was well organized, but with so many different vendors and booths, it was impossible to keep them all in line.  Many of the walkways were narrowed by plants overrunning their space, peices of metal, and the occasional wet pile of broken glass where a beaker had fallen.

Darcy hadn’t felt so at home since she’d left Jane’s lab.  It was almost enough to make her forget her nerves.  

“And Steve’s fine picking up the children alone, and taking them home?”  Darcy reiterated for the dozenth time.  “I know it’s usually us, it slipped my mind that Jane’s presentation was so early…”

“Darcy,”  Bucky said, doing his level best to keep his amusement hidden, “You know that we took care of them on our own before we met you, right?  And they’re still alive, so, you can see it went well.”

Darcy closed her eyes and shook her head.  “I know.”  She gave Bucky’s arm a squeeze.  “I apologize.  It’s been some time since I’ve seen Jane, and Thor, and I don’t believe they know about the children yet, or Loki, and I’m just…”

“Working yourself up over it?”  He suggested, bringing Darcy’s hand to his mouth to brush a kiss over her knuckles.  “It’ll be fine.  Or, they’ll be horrible.  But either way, we’ll get to go home afterwards.”

Darcy smiled reluctantly.  “That is true.  Although I don’t relish seeing Loki at the moment.  If you think I’m annoying when I’m nervous…”

Bucky grimaced.  “Well.  He’s leaving after his presentation tomorrow?”

“I believe so.”  Darcy agreed, looking at him sideways.  “Bucky, I know Loki can be-- abrasive-- but, you have to understand, he was very close to his mother.”  She took a deep breath.  “I was as well, and everything with Odin… it was very difficult.  He took a great deal of care with me.”

“I know.”  Bucky put both hands around her waist to lift her over an orange spill of chemicals near a harassed looking older man’s quickly disintegrating stand.  “I don’t have to like him to understand why you do, Darcy.”

She was smiling up into his face, his hands still resting lightly on her hips, when Jane called out to them.  Darcy knew the look that would be on Thor’s face before she even turned, a frown of concern and confusion knitting his brows that would slowly work its way into an accusing stare.  He was dressed even more impecably than usual, his collar points high and red under a gold brocade lined jacket, his eyes drifting down to the grey ribbon trimming Darcy’s gown in a way that made her feel like she was dressed in only her nightgown.

Jane was well dressed, which suggested to Darcy that she had finally gotten a competent lady’s maid; they were a picture, standing there.  One she couldn't see herself in.  

Darcy pushed down a sudden, intense longing to be home, then smiled and let Jane embrace her.  

“You came for my presentation!”  Jane said, kissing her on the cheek in effusive delight.  “I thought you weren’t going out at all anymore.”

“You are always the exception.”  Darcy promised, taking Jane’s hands and holding them for a moment before stepping back.  “Jane, this is James Barnes, my new escort.”

Jane shook Bucky’s hand distractedly, still caught up in her friend’s presence.  “I’m so glad you came!  I’ve been wanting to get your opinion on the second half, especially, but of course, with your mourning-- but you seem so much better!  Really, I’d love it if you would go over some of my new work for me, you always had a good eye for patterns and there’s something--”

Thor cut her off with a heavy hand on her forearm.  “Jane.  Working a few months after my father’s death... would not be appropriately respectful.”

Darcy tried not to wince at the look he cast at her and the hand that Bucky had left on her waist.  “I do have some other responsibilities right now, but I can look at it if you’d like.”

Jane glanced at Thor with a slight frown.  “Shall I bring it by this evening?”

“Ah-- Well.”  Darcy bit her lip.  “You may, but, you should be aware that Loki is presenting tomorrow.”

Thor went frighteningly still.  “You are allowing him to stay?”

“Of course I am.”  Darcy answered, trying to smile although it felt strained.  “He’s family, isn’t he.”

“That is a matter for some debate.”  He replied icily, pulling Jane back.  She raised her eyebrows, looking down at the place she had been standing like she couldn't believe she wasn't still standing there.

“So, I’ll stop by this evening then.”  Jane said pointedly, staring at Thor until he looked down, faintly abashed.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a discussion with my husband.”

“Certainly...”  Darcy agreed, lifting a hand to wave to their retreating backs.  “Goodbye Jane.”

Darcy tried to imagine what it would be like now, if Frigga were still alive.  She stared after them long enough that Bucky reached up to draw the palm of his hand lightly over her cheek.  “Are you well?”

Darcy shook her head to clear it.  “Yes.  But… would you mind terribly if we went home now?”

He didn’t mention that they had planned to visit some of the larger exhibits, or that Jane hadn’t spoken yet-- just offered her his arm.  “Of course.  I think Bruce is set up near that exit, if you’d like to see him on the way out.”

“Certainly.”  Darcy agreed, not certain she could stomach another wave of disapproval.  But when they paused in front of the doctor's stand his smile was warm and welcoming behind his slightly smudged glasses, and she felt herself relax.  There was something about his presence that was very calming.  “Good morning.”

“Good morning Dr. Banner.”  Darcy liked the look of his table, the clean jars all carefully labeled in his spidery handwriting.  “Are you having good business?”  

Bruce shrugged, grinding a handful of something dry and spicy smelling in with a mortar and pestle.  “I’ve sold some things… with luck I’ll pick up a few clients who can actually pay.”

Bucky’s mouth twisted.  “So you can use their fees to subsidize your charity cases?”

“As one of my  _former_  charity cases,”  Bruce emphasized mildly,  “I would think you would be only too in favor of my methods.”

“Are you in need of funding?”  Darcy asked, thinking of how sick Steve had been when she’d first met him.  “I hate to think of people not being treated because they can’t pay.”

“What I really need is a clinic.”  Bruce admitted.  “Nurses… beds.  I’m at the limit of what I can do, at the moment.”

“Well, you know, I am obscenely wealthy…”  Darcy trailed off.  Bruce hesitated, then smiled.  

“I-- perhaps.”  He agreed quietly, giving Darcy’s face a long examination that for some reason didn’t make her feel exposed or uncomfortable.  Just… seen.  “I do still need to take you up on your offer to speak about Betty, in any case.”

“I would truly enjoy that.”  Darcy promised.  “I so rarely get the opportunity visit with anyone who knew her well… it would be my pleasure.  Any day you’d like to stop by, we’d be happy to have you.”

“Next week?  Perhaps Tuesday?”  Bruce suggested, smoothing his shirt cuffs down as if conscious of the shabbiness of the material for the first time.  “I’m always a little busier, the first few days after things like this, but it should die down by then.”

“Whatever is most convenient for you.  We’ll expect you for Tuesday luncheon, unless you send a card ahead.”  Darcy reached out impulsively to squeeze his hand in reassurance, surprised at the callouses she felt even on the side of his hand, as if he were constantly working with them.  There was something reassuring about that.  In a way it reminded her of her father, although his skin had been smooth.  These too were capable hands.


	30. Ruined

The table was set hours in advance of Jane’s arrival, and Darcy soon found herself curling up on the sofa around Natasha, ruining both of their dresses.

Darcy had always despised the term ‘ruined’.  It wasn’t so awful when it came to something like clothes, but… the way it took a person and reduced them to a handkerchief you’d dropped in the mud.

She pressed her nose into Natasha’s hair, Odin’s face staring at them from the mantel with its customary expression.

 _I hate you,_ she thought at him, but it lacked its usual vehemence.  Sometimes when she looked at him, she’d feel it all again, but… not today, with last night still so fresh in her mind.

She’d spent the entirety of tea staring at Steve’s hands, remembering the way he had touched her, until he’d noticed and she had to feign an interest in the cutlery.  How did people have experiences like that, and then just go back to making polite conversation about the engravings on the spoons they’d ordered?

Perhaps tonight she’d inquire of Jane how she did it.  She and Thor had always seemed… Well.  As if he were good to her, in most of the ways that mattered.  He was an Odinson, but she couldn’t imagine him  _really_ hurting Jane.  

It occurred to her that she had no idea what constituted normal marital relations between a man and woman.  

She knew what sex was-- her mother had been a biologist, after all.  They'd had talks.  But it seemed impossible that what her husband had conceived the act to be, and what Steve and Bucky seemed to think it was were anywhere near to being the same thing.  

The first time Odin had kissed her, she had been unconscious, and every time after he had been holding her in place, a hand fisted in her hair.  Thinking about it brought the taste of sherry with something bitter behind it to her mouth.

Against that, the boys were the clean flavor of mint.  Steve holding her hand, Bucky muttering curse words that sounded like prayers.  A soft touch that she leaned into, instead of a hard grip she couldn’t pull out of.

It was difficult to say if what had happened between them would even be called sex, in the technical sense-- they had done nothing that would result in a pregnancy, certainly.  Only kissing and whispers.  

Only Steve’s hand between her legs and sounds she had to muffle into Bucky’s shoulder.  Only her whole body shaking in a way she couldn’t stop or control, something that left all of her muscles pulsing and her face numb.

Only the way they had smiled at her afterwards, like it was just as amazing and unprecedented for them as it was for her.

They made it sound so irretrievable, losing your virtue, but it didn’t feel like a loss.

She gave Odin another look, and tried again, remembering him holding her to the bookshelf while his free hand pinched at her skin.  Her ears ringing.

 _I hate you,_ she thought, and felt it.  The hole that it had been so easy to crawl into after he’d died, waiting for her to curl up in it again and get comfortable.  

She didn’t want to  _hate_  him.  She wanted to be free.

 

Jane left Thor at Lady Sif’s to continue his very credible impression of a confused and disappointed golden retriever in solitude and made her way to the townhouse.  Had she been anyone other than herself, she would have noticed the large, square shape of something that had been recently burnt still smoking on the lawn, or the panic under Boothby’s stiff, wide-eyed greeting.

Still, it was asking rather too much, even of Jane, that she not find the situation in the sitting room odd.  Darcy was feeding a pile of Odin’s possessions one at a time into the fire, her skirts spread around her on the carpet, unconcerned with the embers that had already scorched the fabric.

A five year old girl who seemed to be taking much more care with her clothing was sitting a few feet away, sorting through a pile of fine shirts with a critical eye.  

“This is ugly.”  She decided, adding salmon pink silk to the stack of flammables.

“Natasha, don’t be wasteful.”  Darcy scolded, preoccupied with a handful of lithographs she was tossing into the fire with the practiced wrist flick Jane remembered from the way she dealt at card games.  “Someone could wear those.”

Natasha wrinkled her nose.  “James would never wear  _that._ ”

Darcy paused, and the shape of her back seemed wrong-- too curved inward.  “No-- I meant, we could give them away.”

Natasha seemed to accept this, picking the clothes from the stack with her fingertips, as if loath to touch them.

Jane frowned, something pushing up in her memories-- Darcy at dinner the week after the wedding, shadows under her eyes.

The way she and Loki had always been like children around each other, barefoot and bickering, and now were like two dying plants clinging to the last pool of water.

All these new people, like she was afraid to be alone with herself.

Jane backed out into the hall and sat down on a bench to wait for Boothby to return and announce her properly.  They’d never stood on such ceremony before, but at the moment, Jane didn’t know if anyone was as much of a stranger to her as Darcy was.


	31. Sherry

As soon as the carriage pulled away from the townhouse, Bucky knew it was a mistake.  He should have recognized there was something off about Darcy all afternoon, a lethargy and a soft spokenness that was out of character for her.  Or questioned why Natasha had curled up on the sofa with her instead of wanting to see the sweets shop that made Jane’s favorite delicacy, when on any other day she would have wanted to supervise the purchase.

But he smiled, and bought some samples to take home for the girls, and tried pretend he was imagining the strange smell in the air, acrid and sweeter than the cheesecake in the box on the seat next to him.

When they climbed down from the carriage Clint paused with one foot in the gravel, the dessert held to his chest carefully as he stared at the desiccated square of canvas, the stained hardwood frame still slowly burning.  

“The portrait.”  Steve said, recognizing it immediately, and took the steps to the house two at a time, leaving the door wide open behind him.

Bucky moved to follow, a few feet away before he realized that Clint was still frozen.

He took the cake from Clint’s arms and leaned his body into him to jostle him out of his blank expression.  “Kid.  This… it’ll be fine.”

Clint took a deep breath that made his eyes water from the smoke and didn’t say anything, running into the house after Steve.

There was nothing for Bucky to do but follow.

Inside it was dark and smelled less smokey, more like lavender and candles, but there was still something bitter in the air from things not meant to burn catching flame.  He abandoned the dessert box on a table near the entryway.

It took him a second look to place the woman sitting on a bench in the hall, her light grey dress standing out from the shade.  “Jane?”

“She doesn’t know I’m here,”  The woman admitted calmly, her lambskin gloved hands folded in her lap, and Bucky remembered that  _this_ was the current Archduchess of Asgard,  “It seemed… I would appreciate it if you told her that I did come to dinner.  That I would love to be invited again.”  She stood, giving his arm a squeeze that was both firmer and warmer than he’d have imagined it to be.  “It may not be my place, but… Get Loki.”

She turned and walked down the hall towards the door that was still flapping open, and shut it softly behind her.  

Bucky remembered the the look on Loki’s face when they’d talked about his father, and took a right turn at the sitting room.  

Loki wasn’t working so much as he was staring at a chalkboard, and he seemed almost pleased to see Bucky, reanimated at the idea of a confrontation.  “Well,  _James._ By all means, walk in.  I’m not occupied with anything of importance.”

“We need--”  Bucky began, then corrected himself.  “Darcy needs you.  In the sitting room.”

There must have been something in his face, or his tone, because the argument he had been anticipating didn’t come.  After a long moment, Loki raised his eyebrows.  “Do you intend to show me  _which_  sitting room, or do you intend to stare at me like an imbecile?”

“Of course,  _my lord._ ”  Bucky replied in an equally dead voice, and led the way.  

Natasha was organizing a pile of clothing in one corner of the room, wide silk shirts in bright shades of gold and red and pink.  They looked warm and inviting.  He could see something of what people must have seen when they looked at Odin, someone grand and generous.

Around the fireplace were half-burned papers and novels, and Darcy, with her skirts scorched, holding a decanter of sherry in her lap.  The cut crystal cast red diamonds over the pale skin of her arms, holding the stopper down with both hands like it was trying to force itself open.  She was staring at the contents blankly, looking at something in her memory more than at what was in front of her.

Loki leaned over to pull to heavy container from her hands, and Bucky noticed that he was barefoot right before he drew back his fist and smashed the decanter on the floor, splattering himself in red liquor and broken glass.

It smelled wrong, a musk under the sharp bite of the alcohol that was all too familiar from his time in the medical tents after he’d caught one in the shoulder.

 _Laudanum,_ he thought, the way Darcy had been staring at it making a nauseating amount of sense.  

When she started to laugh, there was an edge of hysteria to it, but she was looking  _at_  the glass on the floor instead of through it.

“Oh, god,”  She covered her face with her hands, every word undercut with a gulp,  “I burned his portrait on the  _lawn_.”

“Ah, the lawn.”  Loki reminisced.  “Yes, we wouldn’t want to do anything to embarrass the family on the lawn.”

Darcy choked, rubbing her hands over her cheeks to chafe some color back into them, giving Bucky a smile that was part apology.  He shook his head and held out his hands to help her to her feet.

Her skin was sticky, her dress more than ruined, but her eyes were bright, smiling crookedly down at the mess like she’d enjoyed making it, at least a little.

She glanced around the room and the smile disappeared entirely.  “Where’s Clint?  I thought he was here.”

 _And Steve._ Bucky tried not to let the sinking feeling show on his face.  “Natasha?”

Natasha just stared, giving his question the response that something that stupid deserved.

Loki rolled his eyes when Bucky looked to him for help.  “ _Yes,_ you may go.”


	32. Hiding Places

Loki kept up his usual running commentary of complaints, but his hand on Darcy’s arm was steady, and he followed her into her bedroom to help her with her clothes without so much as a suggestive look.  It was strange to her, how accustomed she had become to the presence of men in her bedroom.  It had been the subject of nightmares for her not more than a month past.

Loki’s touch as he loosened the ties at the back of her reminded her of Dr. Banner’s, comfortingly impersonal.  At the moment it was what she needed, but Darcy remembered what they had been like, before.  Loki’s arm slung over her shoulder casually, their bare legs cooling in the river.

The feeling of loss stabbed into her chest, and Darcy closed her eyes, trying to press it back down.  Sometimes she felt she had come to terms with the destruction that Odin had wrought in her life, but on occasion she remembered what it had been like before-- working with Jane with their hair piled messily out of their faces, ink on their sleeves.  Running around the woods with Loki, innocent as wild animals, coming home damp and dirty.  She wanted to wrap them up, those people they had been, and bring them home with her.  

“I suppose I should offer my assistance in the search for your missing urchin.”  Loki commented in the bored tone he affected so often now, and Darcy ached for his old sincerity.  “But I don’t believe the boy would come to my voice.  He has never seemed overfond of me.”

“It’s my impression that he had some… unpleasant experiences with individuals who had been drinking.”  Darcy ventured, holding her blouse closed over her chest while Loki freed her from her lacing.  “And you did break something, that first night.”

“Yes.”  Loki agreed, undoing the last hook and taking a step back.  “Clearly I have returned here, under duress, because I had a penchant to beat a woman, and you were available.”

Darcy rolled her eyes, already reaching for her overskirt.  “As ever, your hilarity is unmatched.  Now vacate my bedroom.”

She had the distinct impression Loki was making a face behind her back, but he closed the door behind him without further comment.  

Darcy had her arm twisted behind her back, trying to reach the last clasp keeping her overskirt in place, when a small hand closed around her ankle.

In the moment it took her to realize what was happening, Darcy felt like she was having a heart attack.

“ _Jesus_ , Clint,” She swore, pressing a hand to her chest to feel her racing heart,  “What are you--”

“You can hide under here,”  He whispered urgently, pulling so hard he loosened her stockings from her garters,  “Before he comes back.”

“Clint, Loki’s not--”  Darcy protested, kneeling, to find both Clint and Steve tucked together under the frame of her mattress.  Clint’s eyebrows were drawn together, his expression tight and worried, but Steve looked unconcerned; even amused.  Darcy let him take her hand and pull her under the bed with them, suddenly aware of her state of dress.  Her overskirt was still hanging loosely around her waist, but otherwise she was down to her underclothes, right leg half bare.

“I’ll go get Nat,”  Clint whispered, and slid out from in between them before Darcy could react.

“It’ll make him feel better.”  Steve told her, keeping his voice quiet.  Darcy was reminded of late night conversations with Jane, when there was no need to whisper, but you did it anyway.  “And Bucky’ll figure out where we are eventually.”

“Yes, but--”  Darcy protested, looking down at her state of dress.  Steve followed her eyes to the place where the silk of her hose was pooling at her ankle.

“I can,”  He offered, already reaching for her leg.  His fingers brushed against her skin, and Darcy shivered, remembering last night and the way he had touched her then.  Steve, glancing up at her face, obviously came to the same realization, his cheeks pinking, but he finished attaching the stocking to its garter without further hesitation.  His touch wasn’t as impersonal as Loki’s had been, but it didn’t feel designed to excite either.  It reminded her of her mother, in an odd way-- the sense of safety and intimacy she used to have when her mother would brush her hair out for her at the end of the day.  Her wine stained overdress was soon entirely disposed of, and Darcy found herself feeling as if she were eight years old and hiding under her parent’s bed.

Skating her fingers across the polished wood, she found a loose pearl button, but otherwise the floor was clean and freshly waxed.  It wasn’t so unpleasant, lying there with her back pressed to the cool floor, Steve a silent, warm presence at her side.  She was beginning to feel fatigued by the time Clint returned with Natasha in tow, the excitement and stress of the morning crashing into a bodily exhaustion that was not unlike how she felt the morning after a night of drinking.  

The smell of the sherry crept up her throat again, and Darcy was glad when Natasha crawled under the bed to nestle against her.  There was something about the little girl that was always grounding to Darcy.

 _Do you ever cry?_ Darcy wondered, stroking the red curls pressed to her stomach.  Surely she must have, even if it was only from hunger or pain, but Darcy had never seen her anything but dry-eyed and determined.  

“He’s still out there, in the hallway.”  Clint whispered, fitting a hand into hers.  Darcy opened her mouth to argue Loki’s innocence one more time, then opted to pull the boy close instead.

“I know.  That’s just fine.”  She promised, pressing her face into his hair to wash out the memory of alcohol and opium with the clean, sweaty smell of his scalp.  It should have been strange, lying on the floor en masse, but Darcy had been sharing a bed with the children for some time.  If the world was different, or if she were bolder, this was something Darcy could have all the time.  All of them sleeping together in a pile, like cats.

It was impossible, of course.  Clint was almost too old already, and the boys were an obvious impropriety.

And Darcy understood, with a sudden swoop in her stomach, why she so favored Natasha.  She was the only one who couldn’t be taken away from her, if the wrong tongues started wagging.

 

Bucky had done a quick survey of Clint's favorite hiding places and decided to double back when he found Loki lingering in the hall.  His body was one long line of boredom, his back against the striped gold that papered the hall outside of Darcy’s bedroom.  His face was blank, staring at the ceiling, but his hand betrayed a hint of impatience, thumbs drumming on his hipbones in an off kilter rhythm.  At the sound of Bucky’s footsteps he perked up, the smug smile that was his default expression in company making its reappearance.

“Alone.”  He observed, drawing the word out as if he were savoring the prospect of the conflict.  “I feel a sudden swell of hope.  Perhaps now you and the little Russian urchin will slip away, and…”

“And you’ll leave her here again, alone?”  Bucky questioned, crossing his arms over his chest.  Loki when he’d thought he might be a threat to Darcy had been a danger to be driven off-- he wasn’t certain how to classify  _this_  Loki.  

Loke made a face like a man biting into a piece of rotten fruit and didn’t respond.  Giving up his post, he made Bucky turn a bit to the side to accommodate the wide spread of his shoulders.

When tapping his knuckles to the door elicited no response, Bucky opened the door hesitantly.  “Darcy?”  He called, taking a step inside to confirm that she wasn’t inside.  For the span of a second there was nothing, and Bucky was struck by the irrational conviction that they were all gone.  That they had run off without him.  Then there was a shushing scramble under the mattress, and a small shape pushed halfway out from under the bed.  

“I got her.  I got ‘em all.”  Clint told him from the floor, his eyes making tight passes around the room as if he suspected that Loki had somehow managed to conceal himself inside of it.

Bucky raised his eyebrows, glancing at the dark space under the bed.  “Steve?”

“We’re all here.  Lying on the floor like idiots.”  A dry voice confirmed from somewhere near the center of the mattress.

Bucky shrugged off his jacket, reluctant to rub something Darcy had bought for him on the floor.  “Well.  I’m always an idiot for you.”  He said, and got on his knees to crawl under the bed with them.


	33. Fault

If Darcy had any hopes of a repeat of last night, they were quickly dashed.  It had required most of Natasha’s considerable influence to get Clint out from underneath her  _bed_ , getting him out of the  _room_  was a fool’s errand.

But, Darcy had to admit, there was something very comforting about his solicitude, in the way he kept patting her with his clammy hands while he fell asleep to reassure himself that she was there.  

It wasn’t that Clint could protect her, or protect her better than she could herself-- it was that he was quite obviously willing to try, no matter what the consequence for himself might be.  His first instinct was to hide from the threat he perceived Loki to be, but he wasn’t.  She and Natasha were sleeping on the bed, and so, he was as well, even though all of his experience screamed at him to crawl underneath it.  To find somewhere to hide and make himself small.

She ran her hand over his hair before it occurred to her that it might startle him to be touched, but Clint only made a little mewling noise and turned into it.  He was sleeping in the same open, sprawled out way as usual, but his hair was damp with sweat.

“He’ll kick.”  Natasha interjected from her nest of pillows when Darcy started to pull Clint’s limbs into a more organized pile.  Darcy nodded in agreement, folding the blankets around him until he was tucked into a tight bundle.  Natasha waited until Darcy had settled before she climbed into the space next to her, blinking in the heavy way she did when she was tired but didn’t want to admit it, her eyes staying closed for just a little too long each time until she finally lost the battle.

And then Darcy was alone with her eyes open in the darkness, trying to notice the clean lavender smell of her bedding instead of the heady smells of fire and alcohol that still permeated the clothing she’d left on the floor.  

She closed her eyes and imagined Steve rubbing her temples while Bucky held her.  Steve exerting the softest pressure with his fingertips in circles, while Bucky was just… warmth, their feet tucking together at the foot of the bed, palms pressed to her lower back to keep her close.

The reality would be more like her bed now, she supposed, comfort mixed with the inherent indignities of sleep.  One of them would snore, or drool, and that would be wonderful in its own way.  That they were even able to  _have_  that, would be wonderful.  But in this moment Darcy only had the fantasy of them, half remembered smells and touches, and she put herself to sleep with it.

 

The breakfast table had never been so silent or its food so neglected.  With years of semi-starvation behind them, it was psychologically impossible for the children to reject food wholesale, but they seemed to be eating by rote.  Clint had set three pastries on his plate and was plowing through them with dogged determination, but his chewing seemed mechanical and rhythmic, as if he were counting his bites.  Natasha had opted to have her sausage cut into the smallest possible pieces and seemed to be swallowing them whole to avoid tasting them.

The boys, to Darcy’s mind, seemed better rested, but were equally disinterested in their food-- Bucky had taken a pastry only to tear it into small pierces with his fingers, and Steve appeared to intend to take only tea.

 _They are adult men,_ Darcy reminded herself, even while she examined Steve’s face,  _and skipping one meal won’t kill him._   He was nowhere near as gaunt as he had been, but he could still stand to gain some weight.  

“Steve, would you like to take some of these to the studio?”  Darcy asked, touching a hand to the croissant on her plate to indicate what she was offering.  “For Angie and Peggy?  It seems that none of us have much of an appetite this morning.”

Steve glanced down at his tea, then over at Bucky.  “Ah.  Actually, I thought I might stay until after luncheon today, and head over to the studio after.”

At a look from Bucky, Natasha slid to the carpet and smoothed her skirt out, but Clint just shoved another bite of his strudel into his mouth as if he were too busy eating to notice.  Bucky rounded the table to mutter something in his ear, a firm hand pushing the boy off of his chair.  Clint shot him a withering glare and threw the rest of his pastry onto the carpet, but followed Bucky into the foyer.

Ian picked up the discard scrap of dough expressionlessly, tucking it into a corner of his gloved hand, and the maids began to clear the table, leaving Darcy with her cooled chocolate.  It was unnerving to watch the table return to its usual blank state, too close to what her life had been when she’d been alone in the house.  The procession of the day’s meals had sometimes been her only distraction, and she’d always lingered there until it was empty.

Except Steve was there, with his own cup of something cold that he wasn’t drinking, looking down into his tea as if he was uncertain.  He’d arranged some time for them to talk, privately, and she was wasting it to feel maudlin over a few crumbs on the tablecloth.

“Should we retire to one of the sitting rooms?”  Darcy offered, and Steve smiled at her with obvious gratitude, abandoning his seat to offer his arm.  Where they were going wasn’t discussed, but they didn’t seem to require it, both honing in on the yellow sitting room where her first interview with Dr. Banner had taken place.  It had an intimacy to it that would have been appealing under any circumstance, but it also only had one entrance that was easily blocked.

They didn’t do that, although their proximity to each other on the couch would have raised eyebrows if anyone else had been in the room.  How they’d been able to escape an incident with one of the servants so far was actually a minor miracle, but Darcy doubted that this would be when they got caught.  (If getting caught was even the right term.)

Steve pulled in a breath, preparing himself for something, and Darcy felt a spark of anxiety bloom in her chest at his expression.  She didn't know that she’d been twisting her hands in her lap until he stopped her, pulling one of her hands in between both of his.  For once his touch wasn’t cool or warm to her, their skin exactly the same temperature in a way that made it feel habitual.  As if they had been constantly touching, and had reached some stable temperature between themselves.

Darcy couldn’t stand to watch him steel himself any further.  “About yesterday,”  She started, hesitating when his eyes immediately locked onto hers.  He clearly meant the eye contact as a reassurance that he was listening and invested in the conversation, but Darcy found it impossible to continue while looking at him.

She didn’t want to see his face for what she had to say.  “I had a bit of a turn,”  She continued, addressing herself to her lap,  “As you know.  I had intended to just do a little housecleaning, clear out the old clothing and so forth.  I’m afraid I got somewhat carried away.”

Steve’s hands were chaffing her fingers as if he thought she were cold and in need of warming.  Even if Darcy hadn’t appreciated having something to ground her, it would have been comforting that he tried, but as always Steve’s touch was a salve.  She thought his hands might be her favorite part of him.

“You don’t need to explain.”  Steve promised, and even without looking Darcy could see the earnest, serious look on his face.  “If it would be a relief to you… I will  _always_  be here to listen.”  He squeezed her hand for emphasis.  “But I don’t need that from you.  It doesn’t matter.”

“If it would be a relief.”  Darcy repeated, uncertain if that was what it would be, though it felt like it needed to be said.  That this was one of the steps to drawing the poison out of her wounds.

She still couldn’t look at him.  “I think that now, I would know.”  She began, and though her voice came out too soft, it was at least steady.  “What it meant, when he began to pay so much attention to me.  Men didn’t begin to get forward with me until after the painting, and my father had recently died… it was nice.”  Darcy swallowed down the feeling of something crawling up her throat.  “It was nice to have a man like that take an interest in me.  It made me feel safe.  I was staying with Jane, and neither of us had much money, and so the thought that such a person had taken an interest in our welfare was a comfort.  And his wife was always around, and always obliging.”

Frigga was a tender spot in Darcy’s memory, and she shook her head, unwilling to elaborate on her kindnesses.  “I think he asked her to watch out for me.  Loki.”  She added, biting her lip at the memories of everything she’d done around Odin because no one had ever tried to be  _that_ way with her before then.  She’d talked to him too much and too freely, gone on walks… drank drinks he’d given her.  Why wouldn’t she?  No one had ever hurt her before.  “He kept being so nasty to me, to keep me away from the house, but I liked Frigga, and I liked Thor, and I didn’t  _understand._ ”

“Why should you understand?”  Steve burst out, too loud for the room, and Darcy had to suppress a twitch of surprise.  He’d been sitting so quietly while she spoke that she’d almost forgotten that a reply was an option.   “Why should you expect… You were not at fault.  Do you know that?”

She hesitated at that, because while it was something she wanted to agree to-- that the fault had all been Odin’s-- there were so many ways she’d left herself open.  If she’d been more careful, guarded herself better, could he have taken her as he had?  Would everyone else have found it so plausible as to not even question it?  Surely not.

“No.”  She answered, pulling her fingers free of his grip and standing.  “I don’t believe that.”

She left him there with his protestations still on his lips.  It was intolerable to hear them.


	34. Angry

Opening the front door brought a wave of warm air that smelled like candles and cedar smoke, and a good view of Steve trying desperately not to pace.  He was sitting on one of the benches in the hall near the front door, his back pressed as straight possible against the brocade wallpaper.  It was the same pattern as Darcy’s bedroom, if in another shade, the glit shining in the light from the open doorway.  Steve didn’t look up when the light hit him, worrying his fingers against the clasp of the cuff link that held his shirt in place.

“I’ve upset her.” He addressed himself to his hand, tilting the flat gold face of the cuff to reflect a rectangle of light onto his face. “Very much.  I don’t think she wants to see me at the moment.”

Bucky sighed and closed the door behind him, and the sudden dark was striking.  The drapes hadn’t been pulled, leaving the interior with the close feeling of being in a cave.  He had the urge to walk outside again, to reassure himself that the rest of the world was still there.

There wasn’t much room on the cushion beside Steve, the bench designed for the use of one person, but Bucky filled it, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to pull him into his side.

“I thought it would.” He said, trying to get the tone right.  There should be nothing self-congratulatory in it, because Bucky did not revel in being right.  It would have been wonderful if what Steve had to say was a thing that Darcy could hear, but the world wasn’t wonderful.

“I can’t comprehend--” Steve paused to press a hand over his mouth, trying to control the volume and emotion in his voice to keep it from carrying throughout the house.  “She was such a young girl.  To imagine that there was any-- intentional invitation.  That anyone could see it that way… it’s abhorrent to me.”

Bucky shrugged and blew out a breath.  “It should be.  It’s a disgusting thought.”  He squeezed the muscle in Steve’s upper arm, feeling the sharp press of his shoulder blades into his arm.  He’d fattened up a bit under Darcy’s roof, but his bones were all still sharp under his skin.  “But it’s the prevailing thought, and that’s a hard thing to shake off on such short notice.”

Steve pressed his face into Bucky’s neck for a moment, just a quick brush of skin and breath before he pulled back to a more respectable distance.  “I’ll go to the studio.  I’m bringing Angie back with me today, I can’t… She doesn’t want to see me at the moment, in any case.”

It was the second time he’d insisted on that, and Bucky wondered what had passed between them to make him so certain.  “I’m sure she’ll be delighted to meet her.”  Bucky reassured, casting a glance at the neglected curtains keeping the daylight firmly outside.  The household could certainly use someone who was more invested in Darcy’s welfare than in safeguarding themselves from the consequences of their hangover.

He was expecting something like when he’d kissed her, and she'd bitten her lip until it had drawn blood-- heavy curtains pulled tight around the bed where she’d retreated.  But her door had been left a little ajar, inviting company, and when he tapped and then pushed it open, he found her still dressed and sitting on the chaise lounge with a cup of chocolate.  She must have heard him enter, but like Steve, she avoided his eyes.

“I hate this room.” She declared, picking up her drink to do something with her hands other than dig them into her skirts. “No matter how much I try to leave it, I always end up back here.  Where it’s safe.”

Her fingers tightened on her teacup as if bracing the throw it.  He almost wished she would.  “It is safe, I suppose.” Darcy’s voice went soft and private, a conversation she was having with herself.  “But it’s a prison.  And being angry is a prison, and I don’t want that, but I don’t know how…” She bit her lip, and Bucky reached out to pull it from between her teeth, leaving his thumb against her mouth.

She finally looked up at him, eyes dark and wanting an answer that she liked better.  

Since he didn’t have one, Bucky kissed her, shifting his hand to hold her face steady.  She didn’t seem to mind the intrusion, taking a moment to deposit the cup she still clutched on its saucer so she could pull him down to her with both hands.

He let her bend him at an awkward angle, refusing to climb into her lap, and her touch became almost frantic.  Darcy slid her hands over the lines of his jacket and back up before finding the straps of his suspenders and tugging.

Bucky shook his head and pulled back, both of them red lipped and panting.  “Door’s still open.” He explained, trying to pull back, and after a moment of reluctant clutching Darcy let him go, watching him turn the lock with an unreadable expression.

Bucky stood in front of her and just waited, hands loose at his sides, until she pulled him down again.  The kiss was different then, sharp and hungry, like being eaten.  Bucky let himself relax into it for a moment, bracing his knees on either side of her.  As soon as his weight met her lap, she moved up against him like she was desperate for the contact, and it would have been so easy to follow her lead and take her to bed.  His body was certainly amenable.

Bucky pulled their mouths apart, stroking his thumb over her cheek. “Tell me to stop.” He told her, voice husky and soft.  Darcy opened her eyes to stare at his mouth like she need to watch the words come out to understand them.

“Tell me to stop.” He repeated, tucking a piece of hair that had worked its way free from its pins back where it belonged.

Darcy frowned, flushed and confused, hands still fisted around his suspenders. “I don’t want you to?”

“You’ve never said no to us.  You should try it.” He shifted back to keep himself from being pressed so firmly against her, and Darcy’s eyebrows lowered in concentration.

“...Stop.” She said, hesitating, shoulders drawing forward protectively.  Bucky was off her immediately, leaving his hand on her face to trace lines along her jaw.  Her eyes fixed on the grip she still had on his clothing, and she let go jerkily.

Bucky leaned down to press his lips to her forehead to try to ease some of the tension there, and she huffed.

“Want to bring Steve some lunch?” He suggested, rubbing her shoulders to get them back where they belonged. “He’s probably starting a new painting at this very moment of a dark street with one lamp lit, or something equally maudlin.”

Darcy made a face, but relaxed into his touch.  “I suppose.” She allowed. “I’m not certain why I feel so uncharitable towards him.  He was trying… it was sweet.  It should be sweet.”

“Because if he’s wrong, it’s your fault.”  Bucky tried to sound casual, as if they were discussing some dry fact there’d been a disagreement over.  Who the Minister of Transportation was, perhaps. “And if he’s right, you have to be angry with all of your friends.”

Darcy let him work his fingers into the hard muscles with her eyes closed. “I’m tired of being angry.”

“Anger is just energy.” Bucky told her, his time in the military coming immediately to mind.  “You just need to point it in the right direction.”


	35. The Likes of You

There were a few people Steve had begun to recognize on his way to the studio-- not to talk to, only by sight.  At that hour most of the people on the street weren’t really disposed to conversation-- they were working people, in the middle of setting up stalls or making their weary way to jobs.  

There was a one who was different though, a dark skinned man who smiled when Steve passed him on the street.  There was some communication between them; an appreciative glance at what appeared to be a new hat, a raised eyebrow when Steve looked rumpled, but few words.  They had exchanged the occasional “Excuse me” or an “On your left, sir” when one of them was in a particular hurry.  But he looked forward to seeing him, all the same.

Steve hadn’t expected to see him at all today, since he was later than usual, but he was there, sitting with his feet in the gutter.  His normally shiny shoes were scuffed, and his face had lost its bright expression.  If they’d been friends, Steve would have asked him what was wrong, but they didn’t have that sort of relationship.  All he could do was smile, and tip his hat in passing.  “On your left, s--”

“Don’t you say it.” The man interrupted, with such repressed rage that bypassers glanced over.  “You’re always tippin’ your hat, calling me sir, but you’ll push me in the gutter the first chance you get, same as the rest of ‘em.”  He was almost shouting, fists clenched for a fight, but the tightness in his face didn’t look like anger.

 _This’ll probably get me a punch in the gut,_ Steve thought, settling himself onto the curb.  He put his arm around the other man gingerly, bracing himself for some violence, but none came.

They sat there together, not speaking, until the lines of pain in in his face smoothed.  He cleared his throat. “I apologize for my outburst.  It’s been… a bad day.”

Steve gave his shoulder a squeeze, relaxing some himself now that he was sure he wasn’t going to get hit.  The man smiled, glancing at Steve almost shyly. “Suppose we should get introduced.  I’m Samuel Wilson.”

“Steve Rogers.”  The hand he offered was at an odd angle, but Sam shook it without seeming to notice.

He examined his shoes, as if the pattern of dust on their leather surface was of importance.  “I see you around here pretty often, and you always look me in the eye, nod hello.  I don’t get much of that, from the likes of you.”

“I don’t know what ‘likes’ you think I might be,” Steve knew what he looked like now, in his fine clothes, but every time he’d seen Sam, he’d been dressed well, “But I assure you, you are much more of a gentleman than I.”

Sam laughed, some of the happiness seeping back into his face. “You’re not selling me that bill of goods.  I know noblemen, and not one of them would have sat their fine clothing in the dirt for me.  There’s no one who’s better than you.”

Steve felt the skin of his face start to heat and stood to distance himself from the accusation.  “I’m just an artist.” He waved a hand at his clothes, trying to somehow indicate all of himself.  “This is all… I have a patron.  She’s the noble.”

Sam shrugged, unperturbed, and levered himself to his feet. “I know what I know. Let me walk you to your studio, Monsieur Artiste.”

 

Steve spent the rest of the morning in a strange state, unable to focus completely on any one piece of work.  His fingers itched to sketch something that he couldn’t quite identify, and he drifted between his canvases, adding shade and shadow to keep his hands busy.  

He thought he might like to paint Sam, once they knew each other better, but that wasn’t what was struggling to get out of him now.  Sometimes paintings burst out of him fully formed, the idea detailed down to the way he wanted the light to fall across each piece of hair on his models.  But more often they emerged slowly, as this one was trying to do.

Steve pulled out his sketchbook and turned reverently to a new page, then let his mind wander as he drew, trying to hold on to the idea lightly.  If he held onto the idea too tightly, it would sink down beneath the surface of his consciousness and be lost.

He drew until his fingers were black and the light had shifted from the east to the center of the room, eyes almost closed.  

He didn’t need to look to know it was Darcy he was drawing.  

Maybe the loss of Odin’s portrait had finally freed him to attempt her, but this morning’s argument had made her feel distant.  He couldn’t see her the way he usually did, in her nightgown with her hair down and her feet bare.  

He drew her stiff-backed with dignity, the way she looked to strangers.  He drew her in the middle of a crowd of the kind of men Bucky had described when they went out.  He drew her alone with them, and tried not to imagine what it had been like for her because it made his hands shake.

When it was finished, Steve couldn’t look at it, but he didn’t throw it away.

“I don’t think I can paint that,” He told the room at large, unable to escape the feeling that he  _should._   He wanted to hold it up to them, these men, and make them look at themselves.  To see the way that Darcy was the warm light the rest of this world crowded around, something bright and beautiful.  That they smothered her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them, like a hand pressed over the mouth of sleeping baby.

“I don’t think I can.” Steve repeated, staring at the drawing where it sat on the table next to his easel, waiting to be transferred to a canvas.  Whispering that it was something that needed to be seen.  Something important.


	36. Good Enough

Erskine’s usually made Darcy feel warm, bathed in all that light-- _seen,_ in a way she usually wasn’t.   In that kind of light there was an unlimited space for her to move and breathe and _be._  It was more than just the glass walls-- it was the entire atmosphere of the building, like it was infused with the attitudes of its occupants.

At the moment, though, Darcy felt a little exposed.  Standing in the hallway with a basket of the food she’d made Steve too upset to eat that morning in a gown that had cost more than most of Erskine’s residents’ entire wardrobes, she felt too aware of what an outsider she was.  She wished to be at home, no matter how intolerable her room was to her at the moment, so she couldn’t taint this place.  She went so far as to turn towards the door before she remembered Bucky’s hand on her arm, and the pull of her movement made him frown.  Darcy tried to paste an expression on her face that might reassure him, but judging by the way he pulled her forward to press kiss to her forehead, she hadn’t succeeded.  

“He wants you here.” He promised in a low voice, and Darcy wanted to protest that wasn’t what she’d been feeling even though it was.  As lonely as she had been before the boys had come in her life, in a way it had been safe.  There had been no one to whom she was truly vulnerable, who could look at her and see her secret feelings.  It was terrifying, to be so known.

“I’m being quite immature, I’m afraid.”  She said lightly, her chest tight and fluttery with an anxiety she tried to suppress by taking slow, even breaths.  “I feel very much in sympathy with Clint the day we all hid under my bed.”

Bucky made a murmur of agreement, then turned her down the hall that led to Steve’s studio, keeping a firm grip on her arm as a safeguard against just such a flight.  Passing under the blank-eyed stare of a marble statue that bore more than a passing resemblance to Angie, Darcy tried to feel benevolently watched over instead of just _watched._

 _This is foolish,_ she scolded herself, well aware that she was judging herself far more harshly than Steve was likely to, but unable to suppress it.  At the end of the hall Steve’s studio door was open, and he stood with his back to them.  It was exactly how he had looked the first time Darcy had seen him working, and she was assaulted by the sense-memory of that smell, turpentine and mint.  On their next step floor let out a shriek of protest, and Steve turned his head with an air of distraction, his mind still in his work.  In the moment before his eyes focused, Darcy realized that _this_ was what she was afraid of-- not that he might be angry, but that he might not want to see her.  That now that he had been exposed to the uglier side of her temper, he might not care to experience it any further.

And then his gaze sharpened, and he _smiled_ , and all of the strength went out of her arms so that her basket might have fallen had Bucky not steadied it with his free hand.  

“I didn’t expect you!” Steve exclaimed, rushing forward to meet them with such unaffected delight that Darcy felt relief and shame in equal measure settle in the pit of her stomach.  She barely noticed when Bucky removed the basket from her grip until he took her empty arms and dropped them limply around Steve’s neck like she was a doll he was posing.

“I’m not above smooshing your faces together.”  He informed them, and Steve went immediately pink all the way down his neck, right arm held out stiffly to keep himself from getting paint on her clothes.  His left arm had come around her automatically, though, and Darcy buried herself in his shoulder, feeling ridiculously dramatic but unable to quell herself.  

“I’m so sorry,” She said, hearing the gulping half-sob of her voice with no small measure of self disgust.  “I feel… absolutely mad, these days.  I’ve been behaving appallingly.  I wouldn’t fault you if you’d had enough.”

“How can you-- No. I--” He seemed not to know how to phrase what he wanted to say, stopping and starting several sentences before he settled on just repeating ‘no’ a few more times.  Darcy could feel the muscles in his arms twitching with the same kind of conflicted impulses, torn between embracing her and his consciousness of her clothes.  It was so absurd and so _Steve_ that Darcy felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth.  She took a deep breath of his smell to fortify her, then stepped back, letting her hands rest on his collarbones.  The arm he’d had around her back slid away to hang at his side, fingers still making aborted movements.  She saw his eyes dart sideways to the turpentine rag back in his studio he used to clean his hands, but he stayed still.  Darcy touched the seams of his shirt collar, and then his throat.  His skin was warm and slightly damp, though the studio was chill.

 _He’s sweating,_ Darcy realized with a jolt, and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead.  She was relieved to find it cool, if a little tacky.  

“I feel quite well,” Steve assured her, his cheeks staining self-consciously pink at her now intense regard.  He was relieved that Bucky seemed to be too distracted unpacking the basket he and Darcy had brought to have noticed the sudden interest in his health.

Sensing his gaze, Bucky glanced up from loosening the laces on his shoes with a croissant clamped between his teeth, and raised his eyebrows.  “He got a fever?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Darcy replied, frowning but taking her hand from his forehead.  Bucky kicked his shoes off and stretched the length of the couch, rubbing his face into the cushions like a cat getting comfortable, and Steve had to restrain the urge to throw a paintbrush at him.

 _I know what you’re doing,_ Steve thought, staring at at Bucky’s intentionally tousled hair as if could make him stop from strength of will alone.

The asshole grinned at him, then patted the small area of open space he’d left on the couch.  “Stevie, come lay down if you’re not feeling well.”

“That might be best,” Darcy agreed, still frowning.  He let her back him up until the backs of his knees hit the couch.

“Darcy, I’m not ill.” He insisted, but it was hard to resist the soft pressure of her hands--she wanted so much to take care of him that he wanted to let her, even if he didn’t need it.  Before he could make a decision he heard the shifting of Bucky moving behind him, and arms wrapped around his back to drag him down.

“Just let the lady take care of you,” Bucky whispered, warm mouth pressed against his ear. “It’ll make her feel better.”

“There’s not enough room for all of us on this couch,” Steve rejoined, fighting the octopus-like clutch of his arms.  “She’ll be left out.”

Bucky shook his head and gestured with his chin at where Darcy stood a few feet away, wetting a handkerchief with water-- presumably to lay on his forehead for his ‘fever’.  He didn’t know how to tell her he’d just been emotional, after spending the morning obsessing over their argument and the drawing of her in the crowd.  “It’ll make her feel better.” Bucky repeated, using Steve’s momentary distraction as an opportunity to leverage him into a more horizontal position.  “She likes seeing ways she’s useful, because she doesn’t trust she’ll be found worthwhile otherwise.  Know anyone like that?”

Steve was spared from trying to articulate a response he didn’t have by Darcy’s return to earshot, dragging the hard wooden chair he sat on to paint over to the couch without any apparent concern for the damage it might do to her clothing, the damp cloth in her dripping dark patches on her skirt.  An image flashed through his mind of a church painting he’d seen back when his mother had been alive and he’d still been in charity with God, St. Bernadette with her hands in a spring and water running down her arms.  Steve closed his eyes and let her lay the wet linen on his forehead, feeling absurd and comforted in equal measure.  Bucky, sensing his acquiescence in his lack of protest, loosened his grip until Steve felt held rather than restrained.  He resented how comfortable he felt.

“Does your head hurt?” Darcy asked in a tone that was a little too soft, like she feared a louder voice would pain him.  “I often have find light feels very sharp, when mine does.  Shall I pull the curtains?”

“He likes to have his head rubbed.” Bucky supplied, hiding a smile in Steve’s hair that he could actually _feel_.  He wished with all his heart that he could kick him without it drawing Darcy’s notice.

Her fingers obligingly found his temples and began to rub firm circles, and Steve found himself suddenly grateful for the handkerchief as his eyes began to well up.

He tried to identify why he was crying, but found himself at a loss to explain it.  Darcy’s touch was cool and reassuring, if unnecessary-- there was nothing about it that should distress him.  It felt nice to be held, and to have someone try to take care of him.  It should have been lovely.

It was lovely, but it felt unreal, like everything else that had happened to him since he’d met her.  Why should this beautiful, sweet, wealthy woman want to grub around in the dirt with him?  How long would it take her to see him, with his mounting health issues and strange fits of emotion, as too much work?  Until she resented him, and wanted him gone?

There had been days, when Steve really had been sick, that he’d considered it-- making himself disappear.  It would have been as easy as walking outside and leaving his shoes and jacket behind for Clint to grow into.  Bucky would have been able to manage so much better, without missing work to look after him or paying for medicines that only worked half the time.  He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t, except that there was a part of him that fought against the idea of that kind of giving up even when his fears whispered that he was a millstone around the neck of anyone who loved him.

And she was touching him like she loved him.


	37. The Marinelli Method

The first thing Angie thought upon entering Darcy’s home was that she had more money than she knew what to do with.

The second was that it was far too dirty for the number of servants the house seemed to contain.

She wouldn’t have noticed if she’d taken the front door, because they weren’t that stupid-- even if the lady of the house didn’t notice, a visitor might have-- but through the servant's entrance it was patently obvious that this was not a house-proud group of people.  There were a few exceptions to the neglect (whomever was in charge of the carpets was clearly devoted) but anyone making a delivery to the kitchen would have had good reason to question its cleanliness, at least as far as its floors were concerned.  The counters seemed sanitary, and Angie mentally classed the cook as one of the better members of the household.

A cluster of idle servants were sitting around the kitchen table, one woman with her feet propped on the top in a manner that prominently displayed her undergarments. “--say that to me.  I’ll quit, I swear I will, and we’ll see where the up-jumped trollop is then, we will.”

“Oh, the place would fall apart without you, would it Molly?” Mocked a second woman, and Angie could see that she, at least, was using her time sitting down to peel some potatoes, even if she did let the dirty skins fall to the floor around her feet.  A few of the others laughed.

“Not saying that I’m so necessary, though a good scullery can get work anywhere.” She turned a hard look on the others, who stopped their snickers with hands over their mouths. “Saying that they won’t dare turn any of us out, with all the malarkey she’s been getting up to.”

“Certainly, a good scullery, but where does that leave you?” The potato peeler rejoined. “And there’s nothing going on that anyone can get their apron twisted over, other than a bit of charity.  If there was, d’ya suppose Master Loki would be letting it go uncontested?  He’s that protective of the miss.”

There was a bit of fondness in the way she said ‘the miss’ that Angie liked.  It wasn’t the respectful address one might ultimately like from one’s underlings-- more what would be expected from a friendly barmaid-- but there was a warmth and good humor to this woman that could easily be parlayed into kindness.

“Oh, shut your gob Carrie, ‘Master Loki’.” Molly waved her hands in the air in a parody of fear. “The scandal king himself, here to enforce propriety.  Yer a real card, you are.”

Carrie paused in her work, and Angie found herself noticing the differences in their appearance-- how Carrie’s hair had been pulled into a Giddeon knot to keep it out of her work, while Molly’s was trailing as loose around her shoulders as if she were in her own home.  Their uniforms were identical, but there was some indefinable quality of care and neatness that Molly would have been missing even without her pantaloons on display. “I can see I’ll have to be the one to break it to you, as these useless piles of rags,” She shot a disdainful look at two of the male servants, who had the good grace to look uncomfortable, “Have been puffing up your opinion of yourself to get a peek at your knickers-- not that it’s necessary, mind, as I see quite a lot of them without nearly so much effort.” Carrie reached out to pat Molly’s exposed thigh, and earned herself a kick (which she skillfully dodged). “You are highly replaceable, my pet, and if anyone ever gets the urge to clean house around here, yours will be the first keister decorating the doorstep, God bless you.”

The ‘God bless you’ somehow implied the exact opposite sentiment, and Molly took it as the slight it was intended to be, dropping her feet to the tiled floor with an emphatic slap. “You’re the fool, breaking your back for that lot, common born as any of us below stairs.  I hope I do get fired, in fact-- give me a chance to find some real quality.”

She flounced out of the room as best she could without the benefit of a petticoat, and the cluster of loiterers began to disperse now that they were alone with Carrie’s conspicuous work ethic.

Angie, still standing in the hall, chewed on a hank of her hair thoughtfully, the beginning of a plan taking shape in her mind.

 

Darcy had imagined Angie’s visit would be a social one-- that she’d have tea with them, perhaps, and tour the house to see if she’d be comfortable there-- but she seemed to disappear into the house until near bedtime.

It was Darcy’s least favorite time of day, if she was honest with herself.  She’d never much liked the impersonal way she was handled by her servants, but in the morning or when dressing for dinner she could at least look forward to being with the others as soon as her corset was tightened and her overdress changed.

At night she knew she had nothing before her but hours of sleepless darkness, and it was harder to take then.  She had no illusions that, Ian aside, any of the servants much cared for her-- they had been of Odin’s household, after all-- and some nights it was all she could do to suppress a shudder at the cold brush of the fingers that loosened her laces.  She ached to be a person instead of a body that needed to be tended to in the same way that the silver needed to be polished.

When the door opened before its usual time, Darcy’s heart jumped, hoping for something foolish.

Angie smiled, like she knew what Darcy had imagined, and ducked a quick curtsy.  It was strange to see her in a uniform with her hair clipped neatly back when normally she was rarely even wearing shoes. “I thought I might help you with your bedtime preparations, Your Grace.” Her voice was smooth, the polished demeanor of one long practiced in service, and Darcy found herself wondering who Angie had been before she was a muse.  

And then she winked, and Darcy laughed with the shock of it. “Angie… you quite terrify me.”

“You want to be terrified, hire Peggy.” Angie suggested, grinning impishly as she crossed the room.  To her relief, Darcy realized that she was to be her attendant for the evening. “She’s an entirely different person when she’s working. I just clean up good.”

Darcy turned to give Angie access to the back of her dress, smiling at their reflection. “Yes, well, I’m certain Peggy has too many important endeavors to pursue at the studio to take the time to torment me.”

Angie glanced up from her work to meet her eyes. “Oh, I bet we could get her to make a house call.”

“Oh-- certainly!” Darcy agreed quickly, and felt her face color a little. “Of course you know I have no issue with…”

Angie reached up to press a cool hand to the side of Darcy’s face, and raised her eyebrows. “You could cook an egg.” She declared, shaking her head. “We’ll have to break you of that.”

Before she could think better of the offense it might cause, Darcy had slapped the hand away as she might have done with Jane when they were teasing each other.  She was relieved when Angie barely reacted, just laughed and started to unpin her hair.  She was much gentler with Darcy’s hair than her usual maid had been, even apologizing when she pulled-- it began to be relaxing, giving herself over to someone else’s care. “My mother used to do this.”

“Mine too-- everyone’s mother, I imagine.” Angie said, drawing the brush slowly through Darcy’s hair crown to ends, until it began to crackle with static. “Up or down for the boys?”

Her drowsy relaxation vanished in a stab of adrenaline so intense Darcy saw her eyes widen visibly in the mirror as it hit.  

“Easy there,” Angie looked amused as she pressed a hand to the front of Darcy’s chest, drawing her attention to how quick her breath had become. “This is what I meant you needed breaking of.  How do you intend to conduct a discreet affair when you look like you’ve just been ravaged?”

“I don’t…” Darcy started to protest, but her reflection was proof enough. “How do I stop?”

“For tonight, it’s well enough-- no one’ll be seeing you who’ll mind.” Angie threw a wink at Darcy’s reflection. “But in the future, I would advise we practice talking about it, in extreme detail, until you’re so enured to the idea of sex that you’re incapable of being embarrassed.”

“I didn’t always used to be so easily flustered.” Darcy admitted, then almost winced at the memory of what was, in hindsight, a youth full of potential scandals that she had been blithely oblivious to. “But that was when I was ignorant of… well, the possibilities, I suppose?”

“And now that you know, it’s hard to turn that awareness off,” Angie smoothed Darcy’s hair with her hands and stepped back, apparently to admire her handiwork, “But that consciousness can create the appearance of guilt to those who want to see it that way.  You need to seem oblivious to what they could possibly even _mean_. And then destroy them, of course, because how could they address a lady with such indelicacies even though you couldn’t ever be expected to understand them.”

“So your advice is to smile, and smile, and be a villain?” Darcy quoted, trying to imagine how such a social stratum might work.  While she couldn’t imagine attempting such a ploy with Loki, should he ask about her relationship, she thought it might be well enough with most people.  She could be wide-eyed and frivolous, if that was the cost of Steve and Bucky.

Angie gave her a wicked smile, and took one huge step back that took her halfway to the door. “In a manner of speaking. But we’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

And before Darcy could ask any questions about how, exactly, she planned to sneak two men into the bedroom discreetly, Angie slipped out the door.


	38. There's Always Australia

When it was dark, Darcy’s bedroom always became immense. It was the high ceilings, how everything just became blackness beyond her bed curtains.  Some nights when the moon was fuller she could make out something of the room, but the vaulted space up above was always untouched darkness.  It seemed to have weight to it, to be the kind of thing that could crush a person.

That feeling didn’t go away just because she wasn’t alone tonight-- that wasn’t how fear worked.  But it felt less _imminent_.  There was still something heavy up there, in the places she couldn’t see, it just didn’t feel like it would fall on her tonight.  Next week, perhaps, or a fortnight from tomorrow, but not right now.

Maybe it was being naked that was making her feel this way, unmoored and vulnerable.  If anyone walked into her room tonight there would be no question what the scene before them meant, with her nightgown lost in the bedsheets and Bucky’s nightshirt clearly visible on the floor.  Of course, the door was locked, but if Angie, who had been in the household for only a day, knew about the servant's passages, someone else did as well.  It wasn’t safe for them to be so blatant about this.  All it would take was one person walking the hall at night hearing them, or a maid who didn’t know that now only Darcy’s personal maid woke her in morning, and all of their dominoes would fall down.

_There’s always Australia,_ Darcy reminded the heart she could suddenly feel beating in her chest, _Or something else._  Society had a lot to say about who you were supposed to be and what you were supposed to do, but money spent anywhere in the world.  There were always aristocrats like Tony Stark who did scandalous things but threw such fabulous parties that no one could bear to shun him for long.  Why couldn’t Darcy do the same?

She hated parties.  She hated small talk, and not being able to drink much of anything because she’d been sewn into her dress, and letting men touch her when they danced, but it would be worth it if it meant she could have Steve and Bucky in her bed at night.  It would be cheap at the cost.

From where she way lying Darcy could only see Steve, still in his nightshirt and curled in a tight ball where he’d barricaded himself in a stack of pillows.  Darcy thought it looked uncomfortable, but his face was slack and happy-looking.

Bucky was a weight pulling the mattress down somewhere behind her, just as quiet and still as Steve, but when Darcy reached back to touch him warm fingers wrapped around her own.

Rolling onto her back made the covers slip down, but she felt less strange about that in the in-between space of the middle of the night. “Awake as well?”

Bucky made a low grumble of agreement, pressing a kiss to her fingers before tucking their clasped hands underneath his head as a pillow.  The gesture had a possessiveness to it that Darcy didn’t find entirely unwelcome.  She wanted to turn all the way towards him and move close to be held, but neither of them were dressed and the idea of initiating that made her feel embarrassed at her own impulses.  They were in bed together and she was still concerned that she would overstep the boundaries between them or annoy him by being overly intimate.  It was absurd.

She shifted a little closer and felt gratified that he immediately folded her against himself.  His body was very warm, especially where her shoulders had been above the sheets and cooled her skin.  It was more comforting than anything she could think of.

“Shift up some sweetheart?” His voice was a slow murmur, sleepy and content. “Shoulder.”

“Oh!  I’m so sorry.” Darcy adjusted her weight so that it wasn’t pressing onto the jagged red groove that wrapped around the joint of his left arm.  It had to be a war wound.  “Does it give you pain normally?”

“Not bad.” Darcy felt him shrug, his shoulders making shushing sound as they move against the sheets. “Goes a little weak sometimes, shaky-- ‘s why they let me out.  Can’t shoot like I used to.”

There was something about the way that he was speaking now that seemed different than how he talked during the day.  It was less polished, words blurring together the way Clint’s always did.

“Do you regret it?” She wanted to trace the lines of the scars, but somehow it felt like she shouldn’t.  “That you can’t be a military man any longer?”

Bucky snorted, so loudly that Steve stirred on the other side of the bed. “No. Never liked killin’ people.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that.  After a few moments of silence, he pressed a kiss into the top of her head.  “So grateful to be here. For you.”

He’d left his face in her hair after the kiss and when he exhaled his warm breath sent a shiver through her.  “I--yes?  Me too, I’m grateful you’re all here with me.” Darcy agreed, puzzled by this new turn in the conversation.

“Don’t know what I’d be doing if we’d had to keep makin’ ends meet on our own this winter.  Something rough.” He gave her head another quick kiss like a superstition man crossing himself.  “Never liked that sort of thing.”

It was on the tip of Darcy’s tongue to deny that anything like that could have happened, but the truth was that she didn’t really know what their lives had been.  “I’m glad that wasn’t necessary.” She kept her voice soft. “But you don’t need to be ashamed of anything that had to be done, circumstances being what they were.”

Pressed against him Darcy felt his chest move in silent laughter.  “I tell you I mighta had to snuff people for money, and you’re tryin’ to make sure I like myself.”

“Don’t laugh at me.” Darcy told him, turning her head to meet his eyes.  “I know you feel something about it-- even having just considered it.”

“I’m not… Oh god.” He covered his mouth, shaking as he tried to stop.

Darcy sighed and gave up, trying not to feel annoyed at Bucky slowly stopped laughing.  It had been obvious to Darcy for a long time that under his confidence there was a gnawing sense of inadequacy-- that he thought the rest of them were somehow better than he was.  It worried her because she could see him someday just leaving them because he thought they’d be better off.

He started stroking her hair in a soft placating way, trying to keep her from being mad, and Darcy felt unbearably sad and separate from him.  She wished that Steve would wake up so she could roll away from Bucky without being obvious about it.

“Are you-- hey.” Bucky’s voice spiked in alarm.  “Hey, no, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

When he touched her face Darcy was embarrassed to find that her eyes were wet.  It was an overreaction for such a small thing, but lately her emotions always seemed too big, bursting out in crazy ways that she could barely understand or control.

“It’s hard to talk about, I’m sorry.” He was using his thumbs to wipe her cheeks, and Darcy closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his concerned face. “I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.”

He kissed her wet face with a loud smacking sound, and her mouth twitched involuntarily. “Oh, is that working?” Bucky asked, kissing her cheek again in an annoyingly flamboyant way. “Is it funny?”

“You idiot.” It came out more fond than accusing.  She supposed his playfulness could have felt flippant, but it was so hard for her to keep her spirits up these days that any levity was welcome.  He _was_ trying to be comforting, it was just his nature to do it in a backhanded sort of way.  She’d noticed it most in the way he handled Clint, giving him a cuff on the shoulder or a rough hair tussle when he wanted to be affectionate.  Somehow a hug or a kiss was too serious for both of them.

After a few more kisses he sighed and looked her in the eyes. “I’m not doing this right.  I just… I’m not a very good guy, or I haven’t always been.  I don’t want you to get scared off.”

“You wouldn’t do anything to harm me.” Perhaps it was naive, to think that just because he’d been gentle with her that he wouldn’t be capable of being something else, but it was how Darcy felt. She moved her head closer to his shoulder, until their faces were so close looking at him made her feel cross-eyed. “Surely you would have by now, if you were going to.”

“Maybe not you. But, other people…” He shrugged on the side he wasn’t lying on. “It’s a good thing your husband’s safely dead.”

“Sometimes I wonder if someone did. Harm him.” Darcy confided.  It was a thought that she would never have admitted to during the day. “Loki has been taking things so hard.”

“He’s said some weird things to me ‘n Steve.” Bucky admitted, voice low. Even here it seemed best to speak of it in a whisper. “Nothing incriminating, exactly, but you could read it that way pretty easy.”

“He’s very sensitive-- I know that might be hard for you to see, given his hostility towards you. Something like that would weigh very heavily on him.  And the loss of his mother… They were so close.  He has not always been as he is now.” It felt like there was more to explain, about Loki, but she was too tired to make her thoughts into anything more coherent.

“I know.” His instant agreement made Darcy raise her eyebrows. “The way you put up with him, there had to be more to the guy.”

“We were best friends,” She said around a yawn.  Too much had happened tonight, and she was warm and falling asleep. “I so miss him.”

“He’ll come around,” Bucky said, and then maybe he said something else, but Darcy wasn’t awake to hear it.        


End file.
